Novel use of 850 Pedal Interface
2011-10-07 by Jim Gordon
Ever hear of an EWI (Electronic Woodwind Instrument)? Its a 4 oscillator virtual analog synth, played like a woodwind instrument. Its similiar to a clarinet or soprano saxophone (my wife says it looks like a vacum cleaner attachment). There's a picture of one on the main page of my website www.jimsjazz.com . The EWI outputs both audio and MIDI. I wondered if I could control my MOTM gear from the EWI MIDI output. I plugged the MIDI signal into the 650 MIDI-CV converter. Not good results. The EWI has lots of breath information, no volume info, and other data that the 650 won't handle. 650 crashed often. The next step was to record the EWI info (I use Sonar). I spent several seconds "composing" a little tune: 8 bars, 4 chords. Made a simple loop of it. Played an EWI solo, saving both the audio and MIDI info in Sonar. Sloppy performance, so without listening to the first EWI performance, I recorded a second pair of EWI tracks. Then I got this idea: maybe I could use the phrasing info from the audio track to control the MOTM output. (Too lazy to put together an envelope follower.) A little experimentation: the recorded EWI audio signal goes to the 850 mix in. The gate output is a solid gate signal, goes to gate input of 800 envelope generator. The 850 CV output is a little tricky. As a control input to 190 VCA its somewhat useful, although some of the audio reappears in the 850 CV output. The EWI's pitch info appears at the 650 CV output. Controls the pitch of two 300 VCOs (tuned to an octive below the EWI audio) and 420 filter. I recorded the MOTM output, once for each EWI pass. At this point there are 5 tracks: EWI audio for each pass, MOTM audio for each pass, and a simple rhythm loop. Well the audio tracks aren't so hot (I played sloppy) and the MOTM stuff is not really tracking so well. I decided to bury the mistakes with some pads. I found that with some reverb I could use both EWI performances simultaneously, if you don'f mind some parallel minor seconds (maybe that's "ethnic"). Not buried enough yet, so I added more rhythm tracks. Added an intro and ending, a sort of arrangment appeared. You can hear the result via www.jimsjazz.com/Francesco.mp3 . Corn is good for the soul. Jim ==================================== Check out my Website: http://www.JimsJazz.com ====================================