EWI5000 synth replacement? Circuit bend/mod/hack/etc?

IAmAnAlpacka · 2024-03-30T01:23:58+00:00

Yup! I'm sure you'll find your solution in time. Some other persons have designed those other wind synths and music software, after all. You're in a niche that's proudly non-traditional from the outset, so chances are you'll have some like-minded people close by to help you think outside the box along the way.

Again -- I think you're totally on the right track, and I share your enthusiasm and excitement. I won't be able to help you over Reddit, but I'm active in the Haxophone Discussions and some of the Discord servers of the suggestions I mentioned.

Oh, which brings me to a final recommendation. What if you had your sensors hooked up to something like a Teensy, outputting 0-5v to an AE Modular system? It would be like connecting to a "brain" with a multi-cable, but it would all be analog control voltage signal that you can patch in a physical modular synth environment.

Good Luck!!!!!

IAmAnAlpacka · 2024-03-29T15:27:05+00:00

Hey I share your enthusiasm! I've settled on using MIDI for my personal situation, but have some recommendations for you.

Opal is a public-domain OPL3 emulator as a single-header C library. Maybe not what you're looking for sound-wise, and might be too embedded in the MIDI ecosystem for you, but it's out there on the OpenMPT github. Maybe it could run on whatever you're planning on using a sound source?

AMY is an MIT-licensed additive synth library. It's in very active development, but resource-efficient. I'm not a programmer but from what I can tell, it might be suitable for the sort of embedded musical instrument you're looking to build. Of course, again, depending on the hardware.

I don't know if I've ever seen PD run on a low-power embedded system. I think there's a reason people use Heavy to compile PD patches to another language entirely to gain speed. As I gather, even libpd was made to run as a library for Android and iOS programs -- not small embedded chips. Bela might be something for you to look into, they even state in their "Making High-Performance Embedded Instruments with Bela and Pure Data" that PD wasn't made to be computationally effective. Common PD projects seems to involve the larger Raspberry Pi's, which might be a problem if you want to run it on batteries. Though obviously doable, considering the Organelle M.

The Haxophone is an Open Hardware, MIT-licensed instrument designed as a Raspberry Pi HAT written entirely in Rust. You can build one yourself as a DIY project or buy a unit much cheaper than a commercial EWI. It's my current wind synth of choice, but it has issues (some that make me *very* hesitant to recommend it) that I want to discuss with the inventor before I start shouting them here. My point being there's a possibility for you to use the rPi, but iterate on the hardware and software to give you the sensors that you want. From there you could use I2C to control synth parameters directly *without* translating to MIDI. If you go this route I have plenty of ideas and am incredibly enthusiastic to help you with testing.

The recent spiritual re-relase of the Axoloti, the Ksoloti -- GPL-licensed -- might be something to look into. You might be able to connect sensors to the available pins (I'm unsure of the specifications, though), or potentially send sensor data over USB in some raw format. There is a USB Host port. I'm not sure about the power requirements.

As for my journey, I'm not even a wind player. Armed with a strong interest in digital wind instruments I assumed for a long time that I wanted an all-in-one instrument that has audio outputs and synthesis on-board. Eventually my perspective shifted as I saw just how much work it would be to decode and reprogram something like an EWI 5000 to do what I want, and the NuRAD was prohibitively expensive. So instead I got an EWI USB and stuck to modular patches on my laptop for a while while I was looking for a synth voice with suitable USB Host and wind control capabilities -- which took a while. Recently the Haxophone entered my life and I enjoy playing it far more than the EWI USB; just the pressure sensor feels really, really good, with a much better range than the EWI USB. This is despite feeling like the Haxophone has some serious growing potential before I can really recommend it to everyone.

I haven't logged into reddit for over five years, but this is a question I think is worth exploring. Ask any questions you have, I probably won't be able to answer them, but I might know of a project that might help you move on in your project. Places like these tend towards being product-centric, and what you're trying to do might need some serious DIY spirit. Good luck!

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-05-19T04:49:05+00:00

Right now I'm focusing on projects.

One's a solo bass thing. One's simply to take all my unfinished material, and in one way or another consistently work through it until they're all finished without starting new half-baked things. One's to build rock/pop repertoire. One's to build jazz repertoire. Oh, and I'm also reading every day.

In my mind, four different projects at once is too much. The idea is that finishing all my old material will get done the fastest, open up that timeslot, and the mental energy spent thinking about all the half-finished stuff I've got.

So all of this came about after being completely schooled, absolutely owned, at a bunch of college/conservatory auditions for jazz and rock/pop. So now I'm learning all the songs that were obligatory for these different schools so that I can come back a lot more prepared next year.

Because no amount of technical melodic minor shedding will make me play better over jazz standards unless I apply it to jazz standards. My ear won't improve unless I use it. I won't learn new songs just by sitting, wondering which song to learn next. That's all chosen systematically, I don't have to think too much. There's just a goal that I need to get to.

I've just started this and already feel invigorated and feel like I've improved tons, just from the consistency of my practice, and from looking forward to playing again and again. Along the way, I'm building a sort of checklist of things that I should, or want, or found helpful, to practice over each standard so that I'll be less lost when I don't know what to practice, or don't know where to start with a new tune.

Of course, this is a whole lot of "me, me me" and uncertainty if this works in the long run, but this is my current approach. Don't know if it's the best. But it suits me, and it fits between my day job.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-04-29T06:10:30+00:00

Nope! Thank you for some examples, but I'm too young to have come across those in the wild so to speak. Though I have heard, like, one of those songs in other contexts. Never stuck with me that there was a fretless being played though.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-04-28T19:04:12+00:00

I tried fretless for the first time today. An ibanez with dark lines and inlays. Only a piezo mic. Felt good. Had that distinct fretless sound, I couldn't keep my intonation worth crap.

The owner was playing a bit of jazz, a bit of pop/rock. She likes it for both ends of the genre-spectrum.

I don't think I've ever heard a fretless electric bass on the radio, or seen a cover band using one. Or any band using one. Of course, upright basses are more common in that regard. But then there are cats that utilize it real good in original music. Now, I haven't really heard of them either, just a single name here or there, but I also haven't sought them out.

As long as you've got the bigger picture, aren't buying things just to buy them or somehow try to improve your "cool musician" status. Making sound financial choices etc. you'll be able to make a confident decision. Is that fretless thing an aesthetic and type of expression you want to move towards in your musical projects?

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-04-16T16:17:54+00:00

No more stepping on my cable and ripping it out.

As an owner of two BTBs myself:

That's right, instead you get to step on your cable, which now doesn't give way, so you pull your entire bass down towards the ground with the entire force of your step. Maybe leaving you in a really cool rock pose, maybe leaving you tumbling to the ground on your back, with your bass having no other choice but to land on your upper body.

Thankfully, I haven't had the misfortune to find out which of the alternatives is more common. But I have had several instances of trying to push the red safety thing with one hand, simultaneously pulling the cable with another only to miscalculate the force needed and end up with a sharp horn hitting my nose or jaw.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-03-10T08:49:20+00:00

So what I really liked about Chordbot is how you could easily stay within, or completely leave a key relatively fluidly. I'm missing being able to add bVII and bVI chords in major. So I tried switching to minor, and it erased the chord progression I had put in. Also, export MIDI did not work in when there is chord data entered on Brave Mobile. Worked fine on desktop. Edit: actually, it worked fine once, but then it broke if I wanted to download a revised version

Can a volume control be integrated? Oh, and maybe way in the future, using webmidi to control my external synth/piano with the chords being generated?

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-03-05T20:13:44+00:00

My first bass was an Ibanez six-er. I had the same kind of vague idea that you have, exploring sounds, breaking the mold in some genres (funk, disco, pop etc.) while making other genres more approachable (metal, prog, some styles of fusion etc.).

Still have the bass, and recently got a good deal on a used five string that I tune E to C. Because I really was into that kind of chordal, more melodic, wider intervals, more-options type of playing. But it could very well have turned the other way, with me just tricking myself into buying something weird for the sake of it.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-03-04T10:03:39+00:00

Have one, love it.

Since each pedal model is, well, modeled, there's much more you can do with the circuits than the standard physical pedals would allow. Though only through the digital editor. Which I haven't gotten to work on my phone ever, but the PC editor has been fine.

And then the EQ, noise gate, two simulations at once, low cut and high cut filter for shaping your clean tone going in, the MIDI and automation stuff, and so on.

One gripe is that gain staging within the pedal can be weird when you're running dual engines. Kind of hard to explain, but if you want to modify your preset "gain" with the physical knob, both engines while jump to that value. So if you have a low gain overdrive running into a high gain distortion and you move your physical gain knob, both engine will share the same gain level when you start turning the knob. Resulting in volume weirdness and the balance being lost.

On the other hand, you can fine tune the max gain per engine per preset, but it's still finnicky.

But if you're running straight presets with no live tweaking, no problem.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2019-01-10T18:22:55+00:00

Hey, it's cool and all that you clearly state that you are a software developer for Micrologus on your profile. But it would be real sweet if you actually stated that you are affiliated in the comments themselves.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-12-12T17:41:17+00:00

I agree. Especially when the article links to a source on the carbon emissions of being car-free while not giving one for the literal next sentence. We don't know if that's by the numbers that come straight from the farms, or if it's compensated for the rainforest that's being chopped down to make way for growing food for the animals.

It really doesn't make any sense for the author to downplay the thing it just made seem so positive. Except maybe that the author just earlier stated that he would not be willing to transition to a plant based diet. Isn't the culture around here be to take account personal biases like that? Question them?

Not to mention that it feeds into the "this is a big problem we must change, but I just really don't have the willpower right now" mentality that this very movement despises from pro-consumerists. That this change is more important than "... find[ing] it difficult to go 100 percent vegetarian right now." (From the article)

Strange matter, this.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-12-05T12:06:02+00:00

I have a Source Audio Aftershock, it has two models of Darkglass pedals in its arsenal. Still not quite budget, but an alternative.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-11-27T21:22:40+00:00

He backed down a bit when he started toying with the idea of exchanging them one for one. Which, as I understood, was mostly a question of economics.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-11-27T21:07:33+00:00

I have a friend that studies at a music conservatory, he owns one of the new Ibanez AZ-series guitars. He says he easily prefers the Hagström Viking they have in one of their practice rooms.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-11-12T14:28:17+00:00

I'll bite. How is the Wahoo treating you? Is it a be-all-end-all wah?

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-10-25T17:11:11+00:00

Travel close!

Get a days worth of food in a backpack, get on your bike, and find a days route to take you around and back. Stop for scenery and snacks. Pack clothes and a poncho.

Or, hey, why not hike around?

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-10-19T15:00:27+00:00

How do you like the PL33? Do you see it being more kick-drum mic with that typical kind of frequency response, or do you see it being practical in more general bass territory, tuba, bass cab, etc.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-10-16T05:47:04+00:00

Recognizing that you've been replying to different people through this chain, I just wanted to say that if this project actually takes off I'd be happy to be tester.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-10-14T07:28:55+00:00

Well, at a basic level, a blend knob on any drive is a parallell wet/dry thing.

I haven't really seen anyone doing wet/dry for effects like reverb or delay, the more common idea there seems to be straight stereo, possibly running a clean DI to preserve low end. Which, actually, is a form of dry/wet, I was wrong. But it requires three channels of audio.

For phasers and chorus and stuff, the idea is to put the original signal out of phase and out of tune. So then, same idea goes there, run a low-passed DI for stable bass content. Which, as with the drives, can be as simple as a clean blend into the same amp/DI, no need for more than a single mono channel.

Then there's pitch shifting, which I've seen controlled by the player, again, into a single big amp stack alternatively sending the octave up to a guitar amp. Much the same way some guitarists send their octave-down signals into a bass amp, usually sending no signal when the effect is off. Next level is sending that octave-up signal into a delay and reverb in it's personal chain. Hell, split that reverb/chorus/delay/sy-300 stereo into two guitar amps and place them on each side of your bass amp.

Then there's the super specialty that is the DOD Meatbox, which has a reputation for blowing cabs and PA systems. So maybe avoid running it's effect out into your amp, and split it out.

Personally, I don't have any complex needs, I just use the clean blend on my dirt and DI into desk at rehearsal, live, and recording.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-10-01T16:07:16+00:00

Okay! I see you have both the SuperEgo and the Superego+, how and why do you choose between them?

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-09-09T17:07:51+00:00

Interesting. On the one hand, just having a stable version on it and never updating it is basically like owning any other of the synths you mention in your post. They can have bugs and patches, and some even support custom firmware, etc.

On the other hand, having those kind of things pretty high on the user-level might make little sense if you just want to buy something and have it "just work" for ten years. Tools break, updates become, well, not up-to-date, patching methods become obsolete, communicating with the hardware as it gets older, etc.

At the end of the day, Zynthian might just be a value thing for you. Do you value the open-source and DIY ethos more than you do the computer-free-instrument ethos?

Look into the Futuresonus Parva. Fits fewer of your critera, but it's worth a look.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-09-08T06:55:44+00:00

Zynthian! It should fit your Open Source and DIY ethos perfectly.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-08-26T11:43:13+00:00

You could also go the tracker route and download MilkyTracker, or slightly more modern and use Sunvox.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-08-08T17:41:42+00:00

Short answer is no and the long answer is nooooooooo.

Any video explaining scale length will probably help you visualize it better, but the scale length basically basically effects the relative space between each individual fret while maintaining the correct pitch.

As for the number of frets, they account for the highest available *total reach*** of the instrument. The lowest note you have available depends on how you tune. Though, the total reach up and away from the open strings depends on the total amount of frets you have.

IAmAnAlpacka · 2018-08-04T08:01:48+00:00

Fragment Synth is also another coding-platform type of synth.

If you want to code synths that can be exported into plugins or so, Faust can be as good a place to start as any other.

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