Akai EWI 4000m Electric Wind Instrument Akai EWI 4000m Electric ...

VI
interview
NATHAN FURST
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combination of sample layer crossfading on
the mod wheel and controller 11 to sort of
duck in and out. To me that’s the best chance
you have to making your strings sound real.
“Though None Go With Me”—that’s a
more recent piece, isn’t it?
Yes, that was another TV movie I did probably
ten or eleven months ago. I can’t say it’s
the best example of my MIDI production
work. That score is about 100 minutes of
music, and I scored that in two weeks.
I play in the line I am using in the violins,
and just quickly flesh it out. Because I think in
terms of intervals, sometimes I have to play
EWI
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right-angle MIDI plugs, which aren’t all that
easy to find.
The synth
The EWI 4000s contains your basic modeled
analog synth. As you can see in Fig. 4,
the screen dump from the included UniQuest
editor for Mac and PC, it has two identical
oscillators, each with faders for sawtooth, triangle,
and square waves. It also has a noise
generator, which you can use for breath noise
or just for noise in the traditional way.
Notice that in place of envelopes, the oscillators
and filters are controlled by breath.
There’s also a formant control for the oscillator
filter with woodwind and string settings.
The delay/chorus/reverb (in that order, not
the way it appears) effects section is quite
basic, but it’s fine for what seems to be its primary
application: live performance. What you
VOLTAGE CONTROL
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Envelope; they’re essential in the creation of
this sound. Though the filter envelope controls
the timbre of the sound, it is the amplifier
envelope that truly shapes the sound,
allowing the crack to happen immediately at
significant volume, while the thunder gradually
fades to silence.
The settings of the Release segments of
both envelopes allow the sound to be played
in two different ways. Strike a key and immediately
let go, and you’ll get a crack followed
by thunder. Hold the note and you’ll get a
crack that gradually turns into rain.
Also note that the Compressor is enabled,
which helps fatten the sound. Stereo Delay is
also used; the setting doubles the sound and
spreads it out over the stereo soundstage. If
you’re looking for something less dramatic,
simply turn off the delay.
62 VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS
two parts at a time. Say, I’ll play a couple of
parts on the cello and just move the bottom
note that I played down to the basses. Most
of the samples at that point are going to be
in combination of VSL [Vienna Symphonic
Library], a different custom library, and Sonic
Implants.
And I love, love, love Sonic Implants. It’s
gorgeous and it’s interesting because it’s actually
very “under-programmed.” Most of the
patches have no velocity layers, it’s a single
thing. If there are multiple velocity layers it’s
only one or not very many—it’s not heavily
programmed. They got the timbre right when
they recorded it. To me it’s a gorgeous
sounding library.
I also use a lot of SAM. I love everything
that Maarten Spruijt does.
don’t see in the screen dump is that all the
parameter settings are shown when you
mouse over them, so for example what looks
like a totally rudimentary delay can be set in
10 millisecond increments up to 1.27 seconds.
But the reverb is what it is—you control
the time, density, and high frequency damping,
and of course the level, but nothing as
sophisticated as, say, the type of room. You’ll
want to use a studio-grade reverb with less
grain for recording applications; this is a very
mono reverb for a mono instrument,
designed for live use.
While the sound of this synthesizer is good,
there are some nice factory presets, it’s a lot
more versatile than you might gather from
looking at the screen, and it’s great having
good sounds built right into the instrument…and
the last thing I want to do is sell it
short…this is really a pretty traditional synth
that wouldn’t turn too many heads if it
weren’t attached to an EWI.
The Program 54, Rolling Thunder, uses the
same basic approach as Lightning Strike, but
the Attack time of the Amplitude Envelope
has been increased to eliminate the crack and
the LP24 filter is used to deepen the sound. In
addition, the two LFOs are enabled, each
routed to the filter, but programmed with different
speeds and amounts. This is what creates
the “rolling” effect as the thunder plays
through.
One final note: Filter Tracking, which raises
the filter cutoff level as you play higher up on
the keyboard, is enabled. This allows you to
play deep, low rumbling thunder at the low
end of the keyboard, and thunder that
evolves in howling wind at the top.
Stop the noise!
Two full-blown articles later, we’ve only just
begun to explore the possibilities noise offers
us for sound design. Everything from gunshots
to flutes to jet planes to A-bombs to
What about brass?
Same thing. I always, always, use controllers
1 [mod wheel] and 11 for virtually
everything, all the time. Sometimes this produces
a very noticeable, dramatic effect, and
sometimes very subtle. I find that the instruments
sound the most real when they have
small fluctuations in dynamics—which translates
into layers as well as the timbre of an
instrument when going from ƒƒ to mƒ and
then back again.
I mostly do this as I go. Very rarely do I go
back and add more CC info the next day or
something. I can’t move on to the next bar if
the legato line doesn’t have the delicate tail
out that I want to hear. OCD I guess! VI
And that right there is precisely the point:
attached to an EWI, it doesn’t take much
more than a sine wave to sound really good.
We have at least one article in the works on
programming instruments for wind control.
It’s the way to go.
Also, it’s worth pointing out that the builtin
synths in previous EWIs were also quite
conventional. About the only thing the 4000s
doesn’t have is an external input for controlling
other synths alongside the built-in one.
Conclusion
After 25 years and several generations with
all the glitches worked out, the EWI is a
tremendously satisfying instrument to play.
This latest one has a lot of new things going
for it, not the least of which is that it’s now
down to a more accessible street price.
The EWI is an instrument that opens up a
whole new world of synthesizer control. I
can’t recommend it more highly. VI
drum kits to ethnic percussion to wild and
wacky sound effects can be generated using
that annoying stuff we spend so much time
trying to eliminate.
So the next time someone asks you about
the signal-to-noise ratio of your system, puff
out your chest, crack a big smile, and tell them
you’ve got the noisiest system on the planetæand
a host of great sounds to prove it.
Michael Marans, often accused of being overly
noisy, wishes to inform VI readers that no animals
were harmed in the creation of this article.
However, several windows were shattered and
his earthquake insurance premiums were raised
dramatically. VI