Greetings to all on new Motifator site. Without the archives (yet) at hand, it’s hard to know whether there’s been any chatter yet about experiences folks are having using AKAI’s new EWI-USB wind controller with Motif sounds ... particularly PLG150-VL (PRE3 bank).

I’m a longtime Motif ES Rack user about to take the EWI plunge. Eager to share tips, tricks, patches, etc.

Come one come all…

One good resource for wind controllers is http://www.patchmanmusic.com .  It’s the best place on the web for anyone interested in wind controllers of any kind.

+1 on Patchman’s stuff.  I bought his patches for the PLG150-VL; they’re awesome.  I don’t use an EWI (anymore), I use a WX5, but from the perspective of TONE GENERATION, there’s no difference.

The main “Issue” with the EWI USB is that you HAVE to have a PC controlling the show.  So, I imagine it’d be hard to gig with, but that’s just my opinion. 

The PLG150-VL is quite capable of producing some very realistic brass and wind voices.  I put one in my ES RACK for just that reason. 

If you program your EWI just right, or use a Midi Event Processor (like I do, the Yamaha MEP4), you can do a whole lot more with the voices that aren’t natively BC controlled…

HAVE FUN!  EXPERIMENT!

Does whatever the OP asked also apply to the EWI4000 as well? My understanding is you can turn off the internal voices (sort of like Local On/Off) and use it to control a VL70 (all this IIRC) so I would imagine ... it should work as a controller. Worse case scenario as Tony says you get a MIDI event processor and you can use anything pretty much to control anything. I am trying to pin down a VL card for my ES6 as we speak and have also looked at the EWI stuff. Maybe it would be a good time to revisit patchman and see what’s up over there.

Two followups from the helpful additional posts thus far ...

1) My understanding is that EWI-USB can be plugged directly into a V-machine (this gleaned from reading other forums, not from personal experience) ... so TECHNICALLY, it would appear that a PC is not strictly required after all.

2)I’d tried to discern whether Patchman indeed offered PLG150-VL specific “patches” but it wasn’t obvious whether this was the case from listings ... thanks, will take another look.

Cheers - OneWatt

Well, I’ll say this: There’s simply no comparison between playing an EWI (USB) through the PLG150-VL and the Aria Garriton software the EWI comes with.

The PLG150-VL sounds pretty fantastic, great responsiveness to wind level variations, and bite. By comparison, the Aria provided sounds are sluggish, like playing through mud by comparison. And in this case, the EWI settings are the same, so I know it’s not something that is readily “tweaked” away.

I wonder how the PLG150-VL compares to other 3rd party soundbanks like Mr Sax T?

Anyone have any side by side comparison opportunities yet?

Tony Phillips,

What is the link to buy the patches for plg150vl. I don’t found in the site.

Sérgio

It’s not clear Patchman has patches for the PLG150-VL. If so, I wasn’t able to readily find any.

Anyone tried the “Artikulation” Voice Library? It is not designed to work with VL (I don’t think) but is designed to work with a BC3 Breath Controller. Just wondering if they were any good?

Anyone tried the “Artikulation” Voice Library? It is not designed to work with VL (I don’t think) but is designed to work with a BC3 Breath Controller. Just wondering if they were any good?

I’m using this library and put a lot of voices from it to my Autoload ALL file. I’ve bought it before VL card and BC3a controller, but I used it with expression pedal. This library is not intended to work with VL and do not uses any samples. It’s using original ES waveforms, but the merit is that sounds are tailored very well, especially controllers. For instance, I like some Funky performance where you have drum arp, slap bass on left side and el.piano on right. And, when you need brass, just press expression pedal or use BC3 and blow hard! Yes, you could use both (your wish). Even it is very interesting when you intend to add some strings or pad to your piano sound. My favourite is BC controlled choir, it sounds very expressive! To conclude, for my opinion, this library is highly recommendable!

Alex

Thanks Alex. I will bump that collection higher up on my “wish list” and check it out as soon as possible!