Re: Aerophone AE-10 - New Roland Wind Instrument
I finally gave in to temptation and bought one, a couple of days ago.
So, I received the Aerophone today. First thing I noticed was that it had a latency, where it sounded the note a few milliseconds behind my blowing. I was eventually able to resolve this issue by adjusting the Breath Sensitivity in the settings.
There's a setting called KeyDelay, added in a recent firmware update. I've set that to zero. I'm not really noticing more glitches, just less lag. I hadn't noticed a change related to breath settings, but I'll look into that more.
When I tried it in the shop, it was still on firmware 1.0. I was aware of the lack of lip response, but I had the muted trumpet working really well. When I got home, I updated it to 2.10, and it was kind of disappointing. It seems to be all about the defaults though, and I'm slowly getting back to where it was before.
Second thing I noticed, is it's bigger for the fingers to reach around than it needs to be, so it's not going to be comfortable to play for long shedding sessions. Maybe I'd get used to it, so by itself not necessarily a deal-breaker.
My hands are on the small side, but all I've noticed is that I tend to hit the side keys by accident, and they're sensitive enough to respond. I seem to be learning not to though. The table keys are a fairly comfortable reach and on most saxes they're a stretch, for me. The only one I have where they're really comfortable is one where I bent them into place myself - my Elkhart 300 series soprano, which I bought second hand, arrived so bent I didn't have much to lose. I wouldn't dare to it to one that already worked though.
Okay, here's a problem; it quacks! With certain right hand notes in runs and other sequences, it would quack out a 2nd octave B seemingly at random. As some of you know, the Aerophone is programmed with a slew of fingerings for "overtones," mostly altissimo notes but some strange alternate fingerings for some notes below the altissimo range. I know plenty of altissimo fingerings
I used to know one, but I've forgotten it
I turned that off. Much better. The octave keys actually work very well, compared to my EWI4000s or Yamaha WX5 - I like the two up, two down setting for most things (OCT2), or the simpler one for sax realism (OCT1). The palm keys are good too and very easy to use, compared to the real thing. I don't practise using those enough on my saxes, due to the painful shrieking that's often involved. Between those two things, I don't feel the need for altissimo, though I appreciate some people will want it.
Finally, the unit has a low static-y white noise that you can hear through the speaker, and plainly hear through the headphones. Roland tech thought it might be an a/c ground lift issue, so I ran it on batteries-only, but the noise is still there. Their tech turned on their in-house unit, and discovered the same white noise issue, admitted they never noticed it previously, perhaps because it's low volume, but he suspects that it may be inherent in the device. I would want to be able to use this live and recording, if I chose, so this is getting returned. I don't like it enough to exchange for another, if I thought I get one without the white noise issue. I can shed most of what I need to on the flute, and it has more practical musical application for me anyway.
I haven't noticed that, but I'm used to playing with electric guitar gear (on headphones - only because it's an instrument the neighbours can't hear), so I'm probably desensitised to background noise level.
Hi all!
It's possible some of this has been addressed in the 13 pages of this thread, but after receiving AE-10 and playing all day today, some questions:
1) After playing for a few minutes, sometimes the unit will faintly play on its own. If I press keys down, it will sound those notes (even if mouth is nowhere near mouthpiece). This is SUPER annoying and I can't figure out what to do.
The last couple of pages seem to cover most of the problems. Detective Tuesday talked about notes not sounding, and I think notes not stopping, and I've had both of those - notably, not until the firmware update. On 1.0, neither of those happened.
It is just down to turning off Auto for the breath settings and finding ones that work, though. On Medium or lower, Breath Response feels limited - it tops out too easily, with nothing left for expressive loud bits. I'm trying H1, at the moment, which seems fine. Maybe I'll go higher when I get more used to it. You need to adjust BreatAdj to stop notes from not sounding, or playing on their own. I didn't get it right straight away. I think I settled on a value in the mid 50s, but it may be different for each one, or may be temperatute dependent.
The thing I've struggled with most is getting the bite set up comfortably. Like Martin, I use a loose embouchure. On a real sax, it's just a question of pushing the mouthpiece far enough onto the cork to allow it. You can still bend notes down using your throat, and bend them up by biting. The Aerophone doesn't seem to quite have that concept.
There's one setting that covers the amount of squeeze needed to start a note playing (BiteSens), but if it's set low, they get closed off as you bite harder. That also seems to set the point for neutral pitch too, so if I set it how I really want it, I'm playing flat, unless I turn off the pitch bend effect.
I've noticed the reed is very flexible, but of course the sensor only senses one spot, so the response you get depends how far your lower lip is from the end of the sensor - if you have the end of the reed resting on your lip, it bends quite a bit but only moves the sensor a little. I'm used to having to pull out like that for low notes, and practically swallow the mouthpiece for high notes, on a soprano, so it takes a bit of adjustment. The WX5 reed is a lot stiffer, so that isn't as noticeable.
I had a chat with the lad in the shop about replacement reeds; mostly how their weren't any (you have to buy the whole mouthpiece to get one), and how at some point the Aerophone will inevitably go out of production, so we'll have to make our own. I hadn't thought about it, but we might also want to be able to choose them in different strengths. I like soft reeds on a real sax, but on a simulated one, a stiffer one would seem to work better because mouthpiece placement against the lip will be less critical, and maybe more intuitive.