Most people consider the EWI to be an “electronic saxophone.” It plays this way out of the box, with the “octave” and “hold” buttons on the side being the only way to access polyphony (saxophone superpowers). However, once you understand how to manipulate manipulating MIDI data outside of the EWI, it quickly surpasses any acoustic woodwind or brass instrument in terms of its flexibility.
One of my passions is pushing the expressive limits of the EWI. I mainly work within the Logic Environment to build programs that allow the EWI player new specific abilities. Most of these programs are centered around polyphony and harmonic accompaniment, two things that are not usually associated with woodwind / brass instruments.
Below are descriptions and examples of several useful programs that I have built. More examples of these can be found on my Youtube and Instagram pages, as well as in most of the Synth Dinner Theatre videos. I’m happy to answer questions on these programs, and I offer lessons on EWI / Logic programming and Patch editing. Also, please reach out with any ideas for new / creative abilities for the EWI - almost anything is possible using MIDI data in the right way.
Freeze Pedal
This program was inspired by recordings of Mike Brecker where he would stack chords and play over them. That was done using looping programs, and this more specifically freezes whatever is being played and sustains it. I use my MIDI foot pedalboard (Behringer FCB 1010) as the controller.
My goal was to pack as much as possible into as little motion of the pedal as I could. What has to happen, in rough order, is 1) Turn on sustain, 2) Freeze the chord, 3) Transfer control of the chord volume / filter to the pedal, 4) Turn on a solo patch controlled by Breath, and 5) Reset it all at the end. In the process of making it, there were many little MIDI routing obstacles that had to be fixed. However, it works great and offers an incredible range of color and expression beyond what the EWI is normally capable of. Further, it can be plugged into most polyphonic patches and work without too much tweaking. My favorite feature to come out of this is that the solo patch can turn on Portomento and build chords separate from the Freeze patch, and their volumes are controlled separately (Breath vs Foot Pedal) at the same time.
Version 1
The first version was very simple, and is controlled by individual foot pedals instead of the expression pedal.
Version 2
There are many small tweaks in this version that allow all the parameters to be controlled by a single cycle of the expression pedal.
Examples
