A Breath in an Electronic World:

1. A Breath in an Electronic World: Experiments in Musical Expression using a Midi Wind Controller Matthew Ahrens Mentor: Dr. James Bohn Bridgewater State University

2. Overview • What is a wind controller? • Use as an electronic midi instrument. • Sample based synthesis. • Issues with commercially available voices. • Applied Results – composed work • Blend: duet for EWI and Guitar

3. What is a Wind Controller? • Played like an acoustic wind instrument. • Breath • Keys • Sends midi data to modules. • Modules generate sounds according to midi instructions.

4. How does it work? • Midi Keyboard vs. Wind Controller.

5. MIDI Continuous Control #2 Breath • Velocity controls initial volume and timbre. • Breath controls: • Initial and sustained volume (dynamics). • Onset (attack) • Cutoff (Articulation).

6. Other Midi CC#s • Portamento. • Glide (Glissando). • Hold and Octave (Polyphony). • Pitch Bend

7. Pitch System • Keyed fingering systems.

8. Pitch System • Valved fingering system

9. Systems on a Wind Controller • Differences and similarities to acoustic instruments.

10. YamahaWX5

11. EWI4000s

12. Sound Modules

13. Sound Modules • Wind Controller • Sends midi messages to the • Sound Module • (Hardware or software) which • Interprets data as instructions to manipulate a • Sample or sound algorithm (additive synthesis). • Sound is then output to a • Speaker or Amplifier

14. Flow Chart

15. Samples • Small recorded segments of tone • Manipulated by Module according to midi messages • Example: Nylon Guitar String Sample

16. Parts of a Sample • Four Basic Parts: • Attack • Resonance • Decay • Cutoff

17. Triggering Parts of a Sample • CC#2 Breath used to trigger parts on and off. • Breath on sends initial volume and timbre for onset. • Sustained breath value maps to loops resonance part. • Breath off signals decay. • Finalized with cutoff.

18. Hardware for this Exploration • Roland Fantom-XR • Four different samples uniquely controlled simultaneously • Large variety of effects and timbre controls that can be mapped to wind controller parameters • High quality of sample manipulation and output.

19. Fantom-XR Images

20. Fantom-XR Interface Images

21. Issues with Wind Synthesis Today • Used as an emulation device • Approximately 90% of commercial patches available are emulations (Patchman Music). • The rest are synthetic timbres modeled after steandard electronic voices • E.g. Popcorn.

22. Issues with Wind Synthesis Today • Acoustic wind instruments: • Multiple timbre across registers. • Expression achieved through techniques • Commercial wind controller voices: • Unmapped expressive controllers (CC#s) • One Sample (single timbre) across eight octave register • Simple changing from velocity driven (keyboards) to breath driven.

23. Solution with Experimentation • Goal: Create and Use a custom sample that addresses these issues. • Attempt: A voice that used classical and acoustic guitar samples. • Samples were chosen from the Fantom-XR’s built in collection. • Timbres were chosen to blend – or compliment – a classical guitar.

24. Making the Patch • Samples were cross faded to create artificial registers. • Acoustic guitar sample is only voiced in the classical guitar’s harmonics timbre. • Centroid – jargon term for average brightness of a sound – was used as the determinant for matching the samples. • Result: a voice with a timbre and feel unique to both guitar and wind emulation.

25. Composition and Recording • Blend: For EWI and Guitar • Cuente el Arroz • Chromatically heavy to show dissonance and resolution between an acoustic instrument and an electronic one. • Interweaving lines to show both parts as supporting to each other. • Ping! • Guitar part only uses natural harmonics. • Shows timbre differences capable with a expressively programmed voice.