Joined: Oct 25, 2005 Posts: 381 Location: San Francisco
Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:33 am Post subject:
I'm surprised breath controllers never caught on very much. In the right hands... er... mouth, they can really add an impressive amount of expression. There's something about tying musical phrasing to human breathing that is appealing. _________________ Chris Muir
http://www.eardrill.com <– My jobby (more than a hobby, less than a job)
I love the breath controller. LIsten to my Lullaby.
I remember when the DX7 (the first synth to include a breath controller input) came out and people bought breath controllers. No one knew you had to assign a parameter to be controlled by it and everyone ended up saying that it did not work _________________ homepage - blog - forum - youtube
Quote:
Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject:
breath controllers
I love what that turkish guy is doing. He's also got a nice video of him playing the baglama saz.
I bought the Yamaha BC-1 breath controller for my DX7 when it first came out and used it a bunch back around the era of my Alien Artifacts album. The problem is that the element sticks and you have to blow really hard to get it working after not using it a few days, and still use a lot of pressure during normal use. The blow pressure was unsafe as I'd feel it in my eyes and ears, so I don't really use it anymore. I have many times wanted to get one of the yamaha wind instruments like the WX7 that came out later with both blow and bite pressure - I assume they resolved the pressure problems I experienced with their first generation breath controller.
Hm, looks like there was a BC-2 and BC-3. Yamaha lists the BC3A in their current catalog, a breath controller on a headset, but it says "accessory for the VL70-m". It has the same stereo minijack as the BC-1 though - surely they are compatible and will work with the DX and SY series? $80. Not finding any reviews on it.
As far as wind controllers, looks like the WX5 is the one they have in production right now and it was introduced in 1999. It's a beautiful instrument with marbled cobalt blue finish for $550... hm, well the picture on the yamaha site shows the fancy finish, but on actual store sites it's a sort of dull black and silver. maybe the marbled cobalt is some sort of special anniversary edition or sich. Last edited by xjscott on Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:59 am; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:19 pm Post subject:
Re: breath controllers
xjscott wrote:
Hm, looks like there was a BC-2 and BC-3. Yamaha lists the BC3A in their current catalog, a breath controller on a headset, but it says "accessory for the VL70-m". It has the same stereo minijack as the BC-1 though - surely they are compatible and will work with the DX and SY series? $80. Not finding any reviews on it.
As far as wind controllers, looks like the WX5 is the one they have in production right now and it was introduced in 1999. It's a beautiful instrument with marbled cobalt blue finish for $550... hm, well the picture on the yamaha site shows the fancy finish, but on actual store sites it's a sort of dull black and silver. maybe the marbled cobalt is some sort of special anniversary edition or sich.
the only breath controller on the market (afaik) is the BC3 by Yamaha. On this model you can calibrate the amount of breath necessary to get the range 0-127 of midi controllers. not many electronic instruments have a BC input but you could get a MIDI Solutions Breath Controller to connect it to any midi instrument.
Both my DX7 and SY77 have breath controller inputs, plus I've still got the BC1, I just don't use it. Have you tried the BC-3? Do you have to blow hard?
Do you have the Akai? In what ways do you find it is superior to the WX5?
Have you tried the BC-3? Do you have to blow hard?
yes, I have the BC-3. I told you, it's only a matter of calibration. You do not have necessarily to blow too hard to get the full range of midi controllers data and it makes a midi track much more expressive than without it (especially monophonic lead sounds) if you assign the right controllers to it and if you tweak the sound a little.
xjscott wrote:
Do you have the Akai? In what ways do you find it is superior to the WX5?
No, I am not a woodwind player but a friend of mine (a very good sax player that you can hear here playing with me) got one and it's amazing. We did some microtuning experiments and discovered that it can not be swithed to midi local off so, for this kind of application, you can not use the internal sounds but I gave him some NNXT patches retuned with LMSO and it is great.
Actually I thought the WX5 was out of production.
Thanks for the video. I then watched a whole bunch of WX5 and EWI4000 videos.
I noticed perceptually/psychologically that when people used wind-like instrument patches in which the breath was mapped to something that seemed to follow from breath and bite, I could follow their performances, but when they used other sounds like scat voices or bells it seemed like there was this large disconnection between what they were doing and what I was hearing and I could not relate to it. Even though I knew it was not the case, as a listener I got the same feeling as when I realize someone is lip synching.
Even though I knew it was not the case, as a listener I got the same feeling as when I realize someone is lip synching.
well, that's the problem with a lot of live electronic music. often the listener does not know what's going on.
it takes an acousmatic approach to appreciate it _________________ homepage - blog - forum - youtube
Quote:
Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer
Joined: Oct 22, 2007 Posts: 137 Location: the flat universe
Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 10:51 pm Post subject:
cool video.
I had a BC1, the trick to it is to put some tape over the breath exhaust hole. It works much better then.
I also had a Steiner Parker Masters touch which worked well.
I am a sax player originally so I made the switch to first WX7 and then EWI1000 in 1988. I now play the Akai EWI4000s and it is very expressive.
It's too bad that breath controllers never took off for people other than sax/EWI/WX players. It adds a lot of music to sounds that otherwise would be very static.
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