Digital Wind Instrument

controllers
#1

As @thetechnobear said:

Also if you are working on something, tell us about it, perhaps others have a similar interest, perhaps even collaboration is possible.

Will take that as an opportunity to introduce my pet project. No achievement yet, just exploring different approaches. So no berating me for failing to produce a proof of my amazing accomplishments. Just got my first Axo Core today.

My project/plan and reason to reach Axoloti-land is: building my very own digital wind instrument with all bells and whistles (but with more expressive sounds than ding-dong and wheeeeee). My musical background is as a sax player and ethnomusicologist. Which should give you an idea of what may be going on, here.

Been playing a fair bit with Raspberry Pi, Sonic Pi, and Pure Data with a bit of Processing, ChucK, SuperCollider, and iOS apps. Been having a whole lot of fun through “Digital Musicking” (i.e. the music part of Digital Making, building upon Gilbert Rouget and Christopher Small’s ideas on diverse types of musical participation).

Over twenty years ago, bought a Yamaha WX-11 Wind Controller. Unlike most Akai EWI models (and the new Roland AE-10 Aerophone), it only serves as a MIDI controller and produces no sound whatsoever. So my basic, almost pressing need is for a portable sound module of some kind. Got a TX81Z (rackmount FM synthesizer from the 1980s), but that’s not very convenient. Could use a laptop, smartphone, or tablet, but it’s the same basic issue. Would just like to add proper sounds to this device. Almost any kind of microcontroller or single-board computer could do the trick. Just a matter of creating a synth patch and driving it through MIDI.

An ear-opener is in using breath pressure (MIDI CC#2) to modulate a low-pass filter. Tried that with softsynths on both desktop and mobile devices. Makes things really expressive. Amazingly simple. So, having a small device which takes MIDI in and drives some kind of sawtooth wave changing pitch with MIDI notes (in legato mode), modulating a low-pass filter’s cutoff frequency through breath control would be fun.

But, obviously, my plans get much deeper.

One is to enable the “Michael Brecker Effect”, based on the work done by Robby Kilgore with the well-known sax player on the Oberheim Xpander. You send a MIDI note and the system gives you rotating chords to accompany this. As the sax is a monophonic instrument, it’s a real kick to have complex harmony coming out of playing a sax-like instrument.

Created similar harmonizing effects in Pure Data and Sonic Pi. Loads of fun to play. Also used mucoder’s no-cost tonespace standalone app and plugin to enable complex harmonies from single notes. And played with other approaches to harmonizing incoming notes. Lots of potential and, assuming Axo could do things like these, could be a significant part of the instrument.

Apart from harmonization affordances, my ideal digital wind instrument would be able to control sound in very expressive ways. Modulating a low-pass filter’s cutoff frequency through breath is a lot of fun already. But how about using some parts of your mouth to change timbre in significant ways? Existing wind controllers have some kind of lip/bite sensing, which typically translates to pitch bend (but can be assigned to other controls). But how about going deeper into the articulation mechanics of the mouth? Woodwind players already realize that a fair amount is happening in the mouth as we play. But once you start getting into articulatory phonetics, you realize that it gets deeper and more complicated, if not complex. Maybe it starts with a kind of (whispered) vocoding model or some sort of formant filter bank. But we can go further than a breath-enabled wah-wah pedal.

The other big dimension is about the synthesis model. Been dreaming of something which brings together wavetable, physical modeling, virtual analog (“modular”), additive, FM, and granular syntheses. Not all the same time, maybe. But flexibly going from one to the other and/or having affordances from a couple of them. My ideal instrument would produce sounds which haven’t necessarily existed before, yet don’t sound out of place in particular musical contexts.

So, there you go: my overall idea for building something with the Axoloti Core. Will certainly take quite a while to build something worthwhile. But it’s a fun journey.

Obviously, help would be greatly appreciated. This Axoloti thing really is new to me.

Cheers!

--
Alex

Hello, Hallo, Salut, Ciao thread
#2

that should be fairly easy. i would start with that and then take it from there, adding things as you grow in your axolotiness :slight_smile: tell us if you have problems with this implementation. i have similar patches for my midi-bass project, i control cutoff via aftertouch, but other than that it's the same (monophonic, legato)

#3

Sounds like a great project for Axoloti.

I like your idea of harmonising chords, and exploration into different expressive inputs via bite sensor - It'll be interesting to see what you come up with.

I'm also a fan of using LP filters as a kind of LPG, especially with breath.

keep us up to date on how you get on

#4

Agreed that it should be easy. Did similar things in Pd and Sonic Pi. But it’d be nice to have such functionality in a small standalone device.
Have you shared some MIDI bass patches? They could prove useful. Played a bit with demo patches but haven’t found one implementing legato.

#5

Will keep you posted. So far, my learning process has mostly been about going through demos. But it should be fairly easy for me to create my own patches from those examples.

#6

here is a simple one that implements legato and glide on legato (since i use this a lot with bass patches)
no lowpassfilters here, but the great oscillators from @SmashedTransistors, they implement filterlike sounds via selfpm. nothing special, but good to give you an idea.

selfpmshare.axp (5.6 KB)

#7

Nice!
Pretty much what was needed for me to build the first part of my project. Will tweak it a bit but it really pushes me in the right direction.
Thanks a lot for this!

#8

So… Made a bit of progress on the Axo part of my project, thanks in large part to @lokki. But, perhaps more importantly, things are starting to “coalesce” or converge, in terms of my goals.
First, the kind of project update. Did end up creating a simple patch which plays a simple synth (supersets doubled by a saw an octave lower) and uses CC#2 to control the cutoff frequency of a low-pass filter. Expressive enough and does the job required as a first step in my Axo-based project. Doesn’t sound amazing, but it’s a neat proof of concept. Wasn’t able to add reverb as the patcher complains about something missing, using just about any of the existing reverb modules. But it still works as a simplistic tone generator for my wind controller.
In parallel, started building the same thing in Pure Data (with the intention of running that patch on a Raspberry Pi 3 with a pisound HAT, once that comes). With Automatonism, it was quite simple to do and to add a few “bells and whistles”. The result is a bit more satisfying than the Axo version, at this point, but my experiments should go back to the Axo pretty soon.

Through a mutual friend, contacted @brasso and we started discussing our respective projects. That sure helps me by stimulating my thinking, pushing me in an appropriate direction, and giving me feedback on the less appropriate parts of my projects.

But what got me back on this forum, tonight, was the Eigenharp. Had heard of it a while ago, but was really put off by the size and price. Had never realized that there was a Pico version, much more reasonable in size and price. It’s unclear to me if the project is still going (the Eigenlabs site and social media accounts have been quite for years, it sounds like). But, of course, the Axo has its own Eigenharp expert in the person of @thetechnobear.

Will dig into the forums here to find out more but anyone who knows enough about the Eigenharp could tell me:

  • Can it work with the Axoloti Core?
  • Can it send Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression to any device?
  • Can it work as a “generic” MIDI input device on, say, an iOS device?
  • Any idea if it’s still being developed?

If all the answers are yes, it could be the solution to a lot of my needs and my Axoloti projects will really focus on expressive/responsive approaches to synthesis (which might mesh well with @brasso).

Thanks!

#9

Ive got a PI Sound hat coming too... got a Pi3 + 7" LCD waiting for it.

Yeah, the Pico is a nice controller - I like it as portable option.

Yes, Eigenlabs/Eigenharp is still going, you can still buy Picos/Taus and even the Alpha, but for now it appears Eigenlabs are not doing development of EigenD.
however, as EigenD is open source, I have been continuing to develop/support it and releasing it as the community release.

As for Axoloti / Eigenharp.... I initially considered creating an Axoloti firmware including Eigenharp support, however, the more I got used Axoloti and better understood the hardware, I decided, its hardware is not really 'up to the job' ... it possibly could work with some model, but really its all or none for me given the development effort involved.

Instead, Ive been creating a lightweight alternative to EigenD (called MEC), which I have running on Bela (BBB) and also the rPI - my intention is the rPI/Bela will be the 'master controller' and then use Axoloti as a sound source/fx.
This is advantageous to me, as the PI/BBB also have enough power to also support the Madrona Labs Soundplane.
and of course rPI support is generally more useful to the Eigenharp/Soundplane community,

Really this is little different to using Axo, as even if I had the Eigenharp working directly on the Axo, there would not be enough CPU left to do sound generation too... so 2 axo vs 1 rPI + 1 Axo , is no big deal... it'll all run off USB batteries :wink:

ok I think these are answered above.

I now will be using Axoloti, as a MPE sound source.
Ive 'realistic' expectations of Axo - for me its not a 'desktop replacement' on its own.
along with other hardware (including multiple axos) , I want it to form a hardware solution.

is this approach for others?
I do plan to continue to help develop open source software including EigenD, Axoloti, MEC - but I'm not making any promises on what or when.
so realistically, potential users should base decisions on whats available now, rather than what I may or may not do.

#10

Obviously, thanks a ton for the very useful answers. But it does dampen my enthusiasm quite a bit. Which may be very good for my Gear Acquisition Syndrome and may provide a further drive to eventually create my own solution. But it’s still quite a bummer.

While open sourcing software can be a great strategy at many points in time and it can really spur something fascinating, it’s also a way to abandon products. With the spammed forums, lack of public comments, iOS app pulled from the stores, and lack of updates, the Eigenlabs project sounds moribund. Chances are, the team’s members have moved on to other projects. Which can lead to great things, including new, and amazingly expressive instruments. But it doesn’t sound like the best time to buy a new Eigenharp Pico. It may be more affordable than many other things, but it’s still quite a bit of money.

On paper, the Eigenharp Pico sounds like it’s just this close to my dream instrument. But the fact that it requires a desktop is quite a dealbreaker for me... Unless it can run properly on a Raspberry Pi without the BBB. Sounds from your setup like it can’t.

To be honest, the combination of desktop tethering and lack of onboard sound generation makes for a fatal design flaw. Not that there’s no advantage in having an instrument working in tandem with a computer. But the real advantage of a device like this one is in the same contexts in which you’d rather not be tied to a computer. This might be an exaggeration, in practice (many musicians use laptops on stage). But there’s something to be said about the freedom afforded a standalone instrument or one which can easily connect to other devices.

So, no Eigenharp for me. (Unless a used one comes up somewhere at a very decent price, which may make me pull together resources to enhance it.)

Perhaps more importantly, at least in terms of this forum, your answers really help me grasp what role the Axoloti can play in my projects. Even before getting my own, noticed how easily taxed it could get with a relatively simple patch. Didn’t really expect that it would work as a tone generator for the Eigenharp. But it did sound like it could become a way to untether the Eigenharp from the desktop. In such a scenario, tone generation would happen on another piece of hardware, such as an iOS device, a Raspberry Pi running Sonic Pi or Pure Data, or an external synth. That would have made the Eigenharp into an appropriate “value proposition” in terms of portability, flexibility, and price.

Extending this thinking, it also means that my expectations for the Axo need to be set properly. Probably won’t end up using it as a sound generator for an external device. Might still use it as a kind of bridge with other devices, but that’s not much of a requirement with most instruments.
Where the Axo might in fact be able to “sing” is as a key part in my own hardware which may or may not work as a standalone. So, building some kind of breath controller using the Axo core could make quite a bit of sense. And maybe that could be used as a very simple sound generator, in the form of a barebones “digital whistle”. Could even imagine playing that “whistle” while playing another instrument, like some people who play banjo and harmonica at the same time. In fact, the “digital harmonica” idea makes some sense, especially with two-way breathing. Though no instrument imitation is ever perfect, digital sounds which give the overall idea of harmonica sounds are easy to produce with simple synthesis techniques.

So maybe the next step for me is to figure a way to create a breath-pressure sensor connected to the Axo. Will need some help, obviously, but it’s easier to find once you figure out what you want to do.

So, thanks again, Mark! Much appreciated!

#11

yeah, I think its hard to recommend a product without current software development for an 'end user'.

a couple of points I think you have misinterpreted.

  • EigenD will run on a rPI or a BBB without any other software

  • Axo, it would not be a simple patch, the Eigenharps send an enormous amount of data, more than any other controller... its the STM32 usb support which is the likely bottleneck, plus then decoding the usb packets fast enough. this would leave little to spare. also the Axo hardware does not support the faster usb speeds required by some Eigenharps models.
    so its more its suitability for this task, rather than a general lack of resources... as I said, its possible it would have worked for the Pico, but I'm only going to spend the effort if it works for all eigenharp models.

I get your point about 'tethering', and sure the simplicity of just connecting via MIDI ( like Linnstrument/Roli etc) is nice.

BUT actually, I think miniaturization has proven Eigenlabs approach to be correct right.
when it came out, you needed a laptop, today you need a PI, it wont be long before your (android) phone will be enough, and as each step progresses, so you can add more features.. one day it acts as a dongle, the next year, that platform is powerful enough for sound generation and fx too.

Also the fundamental idea is the software gets the raw data, so it can interpret it much more liberally than trying to shoehorn it into midi... e.g. consider the rawdata being fed into a physical model.
this was seen as critical by Eigenlabs to not limit your controller to some 30 year old protocol :wink:

Id agree for musicians perhaps just adds complications... but for a hacker with musical interests like me, its a heady combination of possibilities.
(its why I also went for a soundplane which has the same approach)

anyway back to your scenario:
if you can get a 'cheap' pico, it might be worth hooking this up with rPI3 (running EigenD) then connecting the PI3 to an axo for sound/fx. It may be the PI3 can also run SC/PD as well, but Ive not tested that. just bare in mind this is 'cutting edge' :wink:

connecting a breath sensor to axo, I guess should be easy enough... but if you have a WX11, I don't see what this will add. I'm not sure how easy it is to get a decent quality breath sensor working, I once chatted with John (creator of Eigenharps) and he said it took a long time to design the breath pipes to get the 'feel' they wanted, airflow and 'spit' was a tricky engineering task apparently.

#12

aggree with thetechnobear regarding the efforts that have to be made for the pressure sensor. i am a trombone and tuba player. i have tried with a friend to explore pressure sensors in terms of airflow, spit and feel. i have come down to simplify things. why not develope something that has not better or the same qualities than this complicated system but other good ones musicaly speaking?

#13

Ah! Now you’re talking!

Thanks for clarifying. Sorry for my confusion.

If it’s possible for me to setup the Eigenharp to work directly from the Raspberry Pi, it changes everything. It’s still an expensive item, especially for one with an uncertain future. But the investment could “pay off” in terms of doing jams with my RasPi. (Of course, it’s totally possible that the processing power needed to run EigenD and drive a synth would be too much for a single Pi. But it shouldn’t be too hard to send MIDI from the Raspberry Pi to, say, an iOS device. Maybe even over WiFi/Bluetooth.

And thanks both @thetechnobear and @Moutcast for the reality check on breath control. It could still be a worthwhile project down the road but it might be much more involved than one might think.

As for reasons to use another breath controller instead of the WX11, they have partly to do with this same idea about not being limited by MIDI. Having the option to send either MIDI or something more elaborate would be great. Plus, the idea is to combine breath control with something like a ribbon controller and with polyphony. Which is exactly what the Eigenharp does. Could possibly be hacked together with a Seaboard Block played at the same time as the WX11, but it’d be rather tricky, even physically.
So, it does sound at this time like the Eigenharp is indeed my best bet. Maybe not financially, but at least in terms of reaching my goals quickly and efficiently while still learning some cool stuff.

Now, about the Eigenlabs strategy to tether the instrument to a desktop computer (therefore not allowing for direct connection to MIDI-compatible devices)… My words were probably too strong, in some ways. Would still argue that this decision is likely to have had some impact on the instrument’s adoption. Yes, focusing on having an extreme amount of control was the right “artistic decision”. And as you say, Mark, it’s now possible to process these complex communications with a low-cost machine, which demonstrates that they were “ahead of their time”. But there’s a lot to be said about preparing those transitions.
Could be wrong but my guess is that Eigenlabs might have had some luck with an instrument which can send either MIDI or something more complex, say by switching modes. Or they could have sold an additional device to serve as a specialized tone generator, a bit like Yamaha’s VL70m (which was a direct complement for the WX series of wind controllers). In fact, it’s quite possible that this extra device would have sold rather well, especially if it could accept MPE from the LinnStrument and others. Not saying that it would have been a good idea for me, as such a device would likely be beyond my means (like the VL70m, even used). But it would have done a lot for the “value proposition” and could have been another item in my list of things to get if some large sum of money ever falls on me.

So… Will give the Eigenharp more thought. My birthday is coming up and some people have mentioned their intention to support me in my musicking endeavours, if they can. Even applied for a program which helps people with crazy ideas like mine find ways to achieve them.
With a Raspberry Pi version of EigenD, it should be easier for me to make a case for this purchase.

Again, thanks for the help!

#14

if your interested in Eigenharp using the rPI - Id recommend chatting to the users on the eigenharp community on google plus , as there are a couple of users using it there regularly (afaik), and whilst I developed/released it, honestly, I use a macOS laptop for my daily usage.

also, in a similar vain, id point out these users have, afaik, used with tau's, the pico has only recently been supported, as a bug was fixed in the rPI kernel... so I'm not sure if others have used it yet. (of course I tested, but that's not a guarantee)

this is not too put you off, just a word of caution... I work on quite on few projects simultaneously, so my focus can wander at time :wink:

your comments about tone/sound generators, I think the closest to this is the haken continuum (expensive!) which does have a dedicated sound generator for its surface, and its a true masterpiece, truly inspirational for me!

Madrona labs and Roli used a 'compromise approach' where they have developed VSTs. (actually Roli supported a dsp in there grand range, but that didn't support the timbre axis)

Eigenlabs, within EigenD , does have some dedicated sound 'agents' (sampler/synth/physical models) , but suffers from the fact, a developer would have to write the agent specifically for EigenD, so that limits the audience.
EigenD also hosts VSTs, external midi, OSC - so no issue interfacing to other sound generators.

(terminology : agents are like objects in Axoloti, but a bit higher level, and you can create setups (=patch in Axoloti) in editor called 'workbench' which is similar to Axoloti UI, take this with a pinch of salt, EigenD setups/workbench have a different focus to Axoloti, so similar but not the same)

... funny, since exploring Axoloti, Ive learnt quite a bit more about DSP, I now could write some more synth agents, I guess I could even generate an agent, generated from an Axoloti patch ... hmm, see how easy it is for me to get distracted with possibilities :wink:

#15

I'd never heard of an Eigenharp till I read this post, from what I have been seeing on the internet, seams like one of those "out there on the limb" like instruments..
If trying to build something similar, looks like plenty of opportunity for creative licensing. I've read a few setups people have tried for breath sensors for Arduino's etc, one of the more interesting ones was using a microphone to sense how hard your blowing, obviously the harder you blow, the loader the sound the mic will pickup, would be very easy to then send the positive side of the voltage signal out of the mic to the Axo analogue input.
Just a thought with my mind ticking over while reading this post..:grin:

#16

i got very good results with an mpx4006 and an arduino, these are very accurate and responsive. designing the mouthpiece to feel natural and let some air pass to get a not too high resistance is harder i think. for my use (and since i am not a wind player) i just used a tube directly connected to the mpx sensor. i send midi breath controller cc2 that relates directly to the pressure and every time the air-stream is going below a threshold and over it again i send a note on command. this works very well!!! (i can double tongue to about 120 pbm sixteen notes easily)

#17

So, with my ordering of an Eigenharp Pico, it sounds like it makes sense for me to put Axo-related projects on the backburner, for now. Sure, could use it as a tone generator but got plenty of options for this, already, including some which directly support things like physical modelling, wavetable synthesis, and MPE. In other words, if the hardware controller part isn’t DIY, there isn’t that much reason for me to do a DIY sound generator on the Axoloti Core, for the time being.
After playing extensively with the ’harp, might indeed find ways to do a DIY wind instrument which goes in a different direction than what Eigenlabs did.
One big part of this is in integrating breath control with other things which can be controlled by mouth.
After all, there’s a whole lot more than breath pressure happening when someone plays a wind instrument or sings. Was a research assistant in Speech Synthesis, over twenty years ago, and it’s still very much on my mind what the “phonation apparatus” does. Much of it could be applied to MIDI control outside of things like pitch tracking. Sure, we can think of the mouth as a filter bank with the tongue doing lots of modulation to create different vowels, for instance. But the process is more about shapes than linear controls. In terms of transition between vowels, the effect is hard to emulate by turning knobs. So there’s an idea here that we could use the tongue to apply a more “organic” form of control to synthesized sounds than CC values sent in parallel. In a way, more like moving an object in 3D space and changing its shape than like pushing sliders at the same time. Of course, the movement of the tongue along the palate also produces different consonants, which can also open up all sorts of possibilities having to do with percussive sounds (plosives, aka stops) and continuous ones (fricatives, including sibilants).
Something similar might be said about the lips, which do more than simply apply pressure (though they do work well at that).
The mouthpiece of most wind controllers typically does two things: allow for breath velocity to be measured, one way (usually sent as CC#2 and/or CC#7) and measure lip pressure (usually sent as pitchbend). The Eigenharp does use breath velocity, two ways, but nothing with lip pressure.

A more sophisticated instrument could take advantage of other dimensions of the mouth’s control.

Got excited enough about this to send Geert Bevin a message about it. Unsurprisingly, my description didn’t move him. :smile:

At any rate... What this means is that, since my dream instrument is likely to land in my lap within a matter of weeks, will probably not do much with the Axoloti for a while.
Will continue to pursue “tone generation” projects on Raspberry Pi, but that’s also because it connects with other parts of my “sphere of agency”. Once things work well elsewhere, might come back to the Axo with other projects in mind.

So, thanks all for your help. Catch up with you after my other experiments! Enjoy the quiet in the meantime. :wink:

#18

Hi guys,

Sorry for being a bit out of touch during the last weeks but I am really very, very occupied elsewhere.

I have not read through all the technical details above but would like to add a few general comments.

Firstly: What I have learned years ago is that there always is just another thing just over the horizon that will promise even more. The grass is always greener etc. is the more common saying. I think one should just chose a platform that has a certain maturity and then go for it, stick with it and actually even make working around it's limitations a part of the creative challenge.

Why has Eigenharp slowed down? Because it is not the latest buzz anymore. Sooner or later the same will apply to many a crazy tool we now all drool over instead.
Beign a really old fart I have seen the first generation of Computer Musical Instruments, as they where then called, come and go in the 80ties. Fairlight, Synclavier, GDS. Thinking of them still makes my eyes light up. Compared to what we can get for tuppence today they might now seem laughable. But although I never came roiund to owning a Fairlight (though I more or less own a dodgy GDS but that is yet another story) I am quite sure I'dd still be using it today if I had. Why: Because it can basiclly still do 90 % of what you would ever need to make great music. And if the music you get out your setup isn't that great do not blame the tool, old or new, for not having that last gadget that it could theoretically have.

Back to the Eigenharp et all. Although an Eigenharp might not listen to the latest multi-axis thingemajig language I assume it will do all standard MIDI stuff with ease. So even if doing total polyphonic XYZ stuff might still be a bit of a challenge it will stil be a great tool. A tool that challenge you long before you can honestly challenge it for not adhering to the latest fad.

To put it more bluntly: Do not complain too much about stuff not doing all one can nowadays imagine. First learn to learn what you already own properly enough. Otherwise you might sound like a fat git complaining about his bicylce not being made out of the latest carbon composite. Of course carbon is cool but where woudl the best weight reduction strategy actually come from?

That might sound like high and mightly preaching but I alos apllly the sam eproblem to my own efforts. Those who have had a look at my website might know I have put a veuy decisive effort in my own special setup. Should I throw it away just because there is the Hakan or whatever out there?. Nope, I won't. Lookinmg at what it already can and being aware that I have been able to make soemthing that sits well with thye history of keyboard control as well as adds more then I ever had I am thus creating my own controller universe. So do I really need, or even deserve the next generation as logn as I not yet the ultimate Horowitz of my present setup.

Secondly: Back to "our own" Axoloti. One of the main reasons why I decided for it is that it can actually run standalone wihtout the need for a laptop, PC or Apple to run at all. Too many solutions leave the dirty work to a standard platform but then basically take the easy way out. Plug and play is still a main consideration for me hough.

O.K., I do not mean that as black and white as it may sound but I am sure you'll get the picture. Otherwise I might actually have gone for another former "fad", the Touchkey system, which offers (offered?) an XYZ upgrade for whatever conventional keyboard you are already playing. Now that is exactly the sort of evolutionary upgrade I'd like to use.

But then I found out tthere is no hardware controller box for it. You again need to enter a lot of laptop hassle to make it run at all. And that was just to Ikea for me.

So for now I'll have to live with 2 polyphonic control instances only (let's not forget that vleocity has been around since those heady early 80ties) and aftertouch. The rest of my controlelrs still "only" run monophonic. Poor me. But on he other hand I've been able to add a uniform keyboard solution without having to cope with a single line software!

Let's not forget: Just like musical instruments computers are not a goal in themselves. They are just tools.

So Kuddo's to you Enkerli, for not shying away from the Eigenharp Pico after all. If that is your groovy thang I am sure you'll get a lot back from it. Just like Za Funk it might be going out of style but it surely still groove anyway. If you make it so.

#19

PS Enkelri. Did you receive my mega email?

#20

For what its worth, it seems that the solution for less resistance into a breath pressure that Akai uses for the EWI is to have the air tube split into two. One end goes into the pressure sensor and the other exits out the bottom.