[MartinMusicMan]

I have a problem however. While I'm trying to get the correct embrouchure I've just realized that it's extremly difficult to blow into mouthpiece to get stable and loud song from the instrument. My head gets red while trying to blow hard enough.
I have similar issues with mouth piece. It's the hard one (MPH) and I need to press/bite very strongly to keep the correct pitch. My mouth gets tired soon of that continuous hard bite I need to apply. I've already set Bite Ctrl Offset to minimum (1) and Breath Curve is on M.

I can't diagnose your problem from here, but my experience is that you hardly have to blow at all to get a steady sound. You may be blowing too hard. Try turning up the volume on the instrument. Also, you should be able to maintain the correct pitch without pressing or biting at all. Check you settings and read other posts about the breath control settings.

 

[vbluesman]

Sorry for being late to the party but, can I can get a saxophone like experience of practicing on one of these?

 

[MartinMusicMan]

Sorry for being late to the party but, can I can get a saxophone like experience of practicing on one of these?

The fingering is similar to a saxophone, but I wouldn't describe playing it as a saxophone-like experience. It's a digital (electronic) wind-controller synthesizer that attempts to simulate a saxophone-like experience but there's no substitute for making sound by blowing air across a reed. On the other hand, you can play the AE-10 kind of like a saxophone but sound like a Miles Davis muted trumpet or a lead electric guitar or a violin (with vibrato) or even a vocal chorus. And you can play with earphones so nobody can hear you practice. Or play it through PA speakers so the entire neighborhood can hear you. It's a trade-off really. If you want to have a saxophone-like experience while practicing, your best best is to practice on an actual saxophone. On the other hand, if you just want to work out the fingering for scales or melodies of standards or bebop soloing, the AE-10 is handy to have around and you can play it without disturbing anybody around you.

 

[rudolphrapid]

I can't diagnose your problem from here, but my experience is that you hardly have to blow at all to get a steady sound. You may be blowing too hard. Try turning up the volume on the instrument. Also, you should be able to maintain the correct pitch without pressing or biting at all. Check you settings and read other posts about the breath control settings.

Thanks for your post. The issue is strange to me, too. The volume is on max on Aerophone and I use headphones in most cases. It seems to me that a steady blow is necessary to avoid choppy sounds. And the breath curve is on M (linear).

The pitch depends on bite control. I can set pitch bending ranges to 0 so it doesn't matter if I even touch the mouth piece with my mouths I get the correct pitch but this also prevents me to do any pitch bending. Aroud the default value of 35 for pitch down I need to apply heavy bite for the clean pitch. I checked it with tuner in DAW, too, it misses the expected pitch and goes down very quickly if I weaken my bite a bit. I set Bite Sensor Offset to 1 which moves the reed pitch shifting position to the lowest one but it's still difficult to keep that position by mouth. So the reed seems to me too hard.

So what I'm looking for is the best approach of real sax experience possible on this device regarding blow and bite. Is blowing and biting on real sax really so difficult?

 

[milachica]

Sorry for being late to the party but, can I can get a saxophone like experience of practicing on one of these?

I bought one, just to be able to practise a bit at home, which I can't do on my real saxophones. And though I really despise the "saxophone" sounds, among other wannabe sounds, I actually had some really nice musical moments with some of the synth-sounds, the saw-lead in particular. I did do some adjustments to the sounds through the app. You can achieve quite an analogue experience with the saw-lead because it responds well with resonance and cutoff.

But, if you're not into those sounds, your experience may be quite different.

 

[PorkpieHat]

I'd like a full scale digital tenor sax to play in my apartment. Just attach my mouthpiece and go.

 

[rudolphrapid]

Guys, how often do you clean the mouth piece? It seems I'm a very wet player so I pull it off and wash after each usage. However I'm afraid I'll hurst the bite sensor

 

[bartone]

Guys, how often do you clean the mouth piece? It seems I'm a very wet player so I pull it off and wash after each usage. However I'm afraid I'll hurst the bite sensor

I know it seems a bit different from a real sax, but I believe you should wash out the mp after every practice. Odd though, I'm not finding any moisture going into the sax, or the springy collar either.

 

[bartone]

Now that I'm playing an actual tenor again, I can sense the Aero 10 buttons to be pretty much electronic buttons (unlike the real horn). On/Off. Tiny delays in hitting a key will provide a squeak or off-tone (maybe a tiny bit like yodeling). Perhaps it'll force me to clean up my imprecise tongue/finger coordination. It IS helping me practice when there are people around though. I'm remembering the Joana Cassidy line in Blade Runner: Hell, you think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake? ;-)

 

[milachica]

Now that I'm playing an actual tenor again, I can sense the Aero 10 buttons to be pretty much electronic buttons (unlike the real horn). On/Off. Tiny delays in hitting a key will provide a squeak or off-tone (maybe a tiny bit like yodeling).

True. It did help me quite a lot to choose the fingering setting that doesn't allow for the altissimo fingerings. I believe it is "sax2".

 

[Cellomangler]

Anyone had success driving a hardware synth - keyboard or module - with the AE-10, using USB and/or a standard MIDI cable? I know you would need to use a standalone USB to MIDI box such as the iConnectivity mio2 for converting USB from the AE-10 to the MIDI din required by most older synths/modules I'm not even aware of any alternatives besides the mio2. One thing I really like about my venerable WX-5 is the old fashioned MIDI output, which makes it easy to pass the signal through a MIDI Solutions Event Processor for alternative controller routings. Cheers.

 

[milachica]

https://www.modemachines.com/cerebel-usb-v2

This one works fine. You really need some kind of interface. Just a cable won't work.

 

[Cellomangler]

https://www.modemachines.com/cerebel-usb-v2

This one works fine. You really need some kind of interface. Just a cable won't work.

According to the website, that product has been discontinued. Looks like either the Kenton USB Host MK2 or the iConnectivity mio2 2x2 is the way to go. The mio2 also has programmable controller mapping, though this might not be so necessary if you can freely remap controller assignments within the Aerophone. Seems I can't find anyone other than myself with the experience or the desire to play hardware synths with the Aerophone without a computer inbetwix. I currently play a Yamaha WX5 and I have a blast playing everything from vintage synths to a Nord Wave to an IK Uno - and using MIDI 5-pin DIN with remapping from a Midi Solutions Event Processor. I like the prospect of mapping some cool functionality to the joystick controller on the AE-10.

 

[ReedmanK]

What are the best wind synth sounds that are already preset on this instrument

 

[milachica]

What are the best wind synth sounds that are already preset on this instrument

I like the saw lead a lot. The response does depend on your personal Aerophone settings ofcourse

 

[crakob]

Hi Guys,
i am trying to tweek the trumpet tone with CC81 (Fall) to the thumbstick. (like in Parnells video). But as i apply the stick, the volume drops a lot and i only hear the "falling note" very faint.

Another question. was connecting the AE with the Roland app yesterday for the first time. AE FW 3.10 But the tones in the app do not match the ones on the AE. After importing all tones from the AE to the app. only abaout 40 tones were importet. Rest said "init tone" and still the imported tones do not match the tones on the AE.
The app only can store 100 tones.

Any idea, what i'm missing in both cases

Thanks a lot for your help

 

[MartinMusicMan]

I did a video recording of me playing a Santana-type distortion guitar sound on "Europa" on my AE-10. It's on Facebook, which I think you can get to with this link even if you're not on Facebook
.
This was a test. It was only a test. If this had been a real attempt to play this tune. I would have probably played it on my Martin Music Man.

 

[bobsax]

I did a video recording of me playing a Santana-type distortion guitar sound on "Europa" on my AE-10. It's on Facebook, which I think you can get to with this link even if you're not on Facebook
.
This was a test. It was only a test. If this had been a real attempt to play this tune. I would have probably played it on my Martin Music Man.

Good but the thing was out of tune? Have you played it with a tuning app? Maybe set the pitch bend a little bit less?

 

[bobsax]

Wow 27 pages as of 8/24/20 ��
Rather than go through all those pages I hope it’s OK to ask a few questions and I’ll start to go back through the old pages.
1) is there a consensus that this is the best wind controller on the market now? Roland seems to have several models . Which is best ? I have played the old Ewi and I did get good enough at it to actually gig on it. The hardest part was the rollers but the touch keys were Actually kind of nice.

2) I guess this one has buttons like the Yamaha? How does it compare?

3) has anybody played bass with it? I heard an acoustic bass sound on YouTube and it sounded pretty good but the guy didn’t know how to play bass.

4)Does it work with notation programs? I have Finale ,Notion and Muscore .

 

[Maddcow]

@bobsax, I've been playing wind controllers since 1998 and currently own an EWI4000S, 2 x Yamaha WX5 and an Aerophone AE-10. Of these, I detest the AE-10...absolutely detest it. I'll be selling it soon and never want to see one again. It has physical buttons but they're nothing like the Yamaha and not like anything else, either. They're clicky and make a hell of a lot of noise....not enough to be heard during a gig but very distracting when practising. The action is also not smooth at all. Many of the internal sounds (especially the acoustic emulations) are crap but it seems that a number of players seem to find them acceptable....not me. However, the bass sounds are actually decent, as are the solo strings, some of the ethnic winds and the synths. The majority of the wind and brass are shockingly bad.

In terms of working with notation programs: what exactly do you mean by this? As a MIDI controller, you can use it to input notes but why bother when Finale's Speedy Entry would be 10 times quicker and easier??

There is definitely NOT a consensus that the AE-10 is the best wind controller on the market right now. In fact, the nearly 25 year old WX5 is still much better in the opinion of many pro users. The build-quality of the AE-10 is terrible and one drop will cause a lot of damage. The mouthpiece and lip sensor doesn't come close to the accuracy and comfort of the WX5. There are numerous standard alternate sax fingerings missing and you need to use quite a few of the 10 user-programmable fingerings to overcome those deficiencies.

Shall I continue??

In the AE-10s favour, you get a new instrument, exceptional portability, internal sounds (if you want them), a 2-axis, 4-point thumb joystick which can do some interesting things, and altissimo range for sax players. None of these were enough to sell me on the AE-10 but Roland seems to be selling quite a few units of the Aerophone family and so they’ll keep making this consumer-grade (i.e. not pro level) rubbish. If Roland was to introduce a pro version of the Aerophone that addresses the issues I've mentioned, I'll consider it again.