brecker original rays : an AKAI EWI 4000 fan version

[frederickfarrell]

Nice work! My wife played a version of this at her recital, you might enjoy it: youtube com gemmafarrellmusic

[feder04]

awesome man

[HotelZulu]

Hey, I'm an AKAI player too, and I love that Michael Brecker song! It still puzzles me how he managed to play chords with it at the beginning... some kind of chord controller pedal at his foot?

[evildelul]

i think is Oberheim xpander

[sequel91]

He definitely used an Oberheim Xpander. There used to be an article on the web (going back 10 years or so) that explained how he did the beginning of "Original Rays", programming and all. Of course, I only understood about half of it...

[stephpublic]

He used a possibility of this synthesizer to built a "rotator": when he played a note, this was transposed on two other channels(canals), on the first one the note is fixed, on the other one it varies (rotate) . he obtained a chord where both first notes were "fixed" (1th, third) and the last one varies every triggered note (5th, 8th, ..). More recently, he programmed in logic a "boosted rotator" with more notes for the chords and intervals. What a genius!!

[BonMarcel]

tres beau !

[stephpublic]

merci !!

la même chose pour votre musique ...

[firehandszarb]

if you learn to play on one of these can you then,more or less, play a real saxaphone?

[stephpublic]

the answer is yes and no... There are more common points with the recorder!!. the techniques of breath are less complex than those of the saxophone. On the other hand the dexterity and fingerings are rather similar (can be parametrized in various ways).

It is easier to pass from the saxophone to the EWI, than the opposite. On the other hand I use the EWI a lot to keep in touch with the saxophone (work late in the evening with a headphone)

[eyeheartchrist]

One of the main differences between the EWI and saxophone(other than the obvious), is the embouchure diciplines, breath support, and tonguing is more technical than the EWI. Whereas with the EWI you can get by with lack of a stacked air colum(with saxophone this is crucial), and all you basically have to do it blow in it and learn the different ways to articulate each note on the EWI. :-)

[keraton45]

awsome.... were can i get the mbrecker ewi. that he used in many his video such late 80's

[stephpublic]

Thank's for your comment

Mickael Brecker has played with many models: a began with Nyle Steiner's prototypes , and with models manufactured by Akai (EWI 1000, 3000, 3020 and 4000s. The AKai 4000s is the last model of this series and Contains numerous technical innovations for most expressiness. The 80's sound depends of the synth and sound modules used, but not of the EWI itself. So , you can get a 4000s and play with 80's sound. best regards

[stephpublic]

But if you want the same model , it's necessary to find second-hand on the specialized sites ( patchman, ewi-evi, ebay)

[eyeheartchrist]

all of that is cosmetics and mentality of what the person is playing...which none of that is important. if anyone is looking for a Wind Synth, anyone that researches enough and using common sense, the 4000s would be the best choice. I haven't played a Yamaha WX5 yet, so I wouldn't know with that. :-)

[dommidge]

Really good! I have one of those and i wish I could play it like that. Did you play the whole thing just using the round buttons?

[kirkieb1111]

i'm a pianist but that shit is hot!

[musicfanny]

Yeah. I would like to know what sound you are using?

[stephpublic]

it was the patch 21 of the internal synth.

but i recorded this tunes with my digital camera : i think that the patch sound more dull than the "original"

[MarvsTracks]

So Cool. You sound good on this song! Can you point me in the right direction for setting up my ewi using software samplers? I have no idea how to get it to sound responisive using these software programs like it does internally. I have Kontact 3, Cakewalk, Kinetic 2 and Project 5. Any help would be appreciated.

[stephpublic]

I'm not using this software, but a good solution is to apply the breath controller (CC2) to differents parameters (Filters, envelope, LFO) with the midilearn function when it's available .

you have to know which kind of midi controller your soft or Vsti accept ( consult the table of implementation).

[jazzmaster01]

me too... i'd love the backing track if you could e-mail it to me! nice playing, also.. is that patch from patchman music? i don't recognize it as a factory preset

[boblehue]

That is some great ewi playing!!

Loved it!

I'm a EWI player my self, but not half as good as that!!

Just love Brecker playing "In A Sentimental Mood" Live In Tokyo '86

Post more!!!

[sleinad]

Excellent! Would you consider sending me the backing music. I'd love to try to play along too.