The EWI, particularly the latest 5000 model is an amazing piece of kit. But like most electronic gear, there are a few essential tweaks needed to get the most out of it.
In this article I’ll talk you through what I think are some really important “first setup” steps plus give you some techniques you can use straight away to get the most out of your EWI. The steps below are for the new EWI5000 model. If you have the older 4000s you can also make these changes although the settings may vary a little.
First steps
Before you even blow your first notes, here are four tweaks I always suggest that will make your EWI respond better. These can all be accessed on the setup screen on the upper back of your EWI.
A word of caution: The new EWI5000 is a beast and has all sorts of options available within the “setup” menu. You should tread very carefully when making any changes. Be careful to follow the instructions below and don’t change anything unless you are sure you know what you are doing!
1 – The “dp” setting
The “Direct Program” or “dp” feature isn’t needed for normal EWI playing with the internal sounds. It’s best to have this switched off.
To do this, turn your EWI on and press and hold the “SETUP” button. Use the “INTERVAL” and “HOLD” side keys to scroll through till the display shows “PC”. When you release the “SETUP” button, your display should show “dp”. If there is a dot showing between the “d” and “p” then this setting is “on”. To turn your “dp” setting off, press the “trans.” button and the dot should dissappear.
2 – B5 tweak
Hold your “SETUP” button down again and scroll using the “INTERVAL” and “HOLD” side keys untill you can see “B5” on your rear display. “B5” is EWI speak for “BS” or Breath Sensor. When you release the “SETUP” key your display should show “vo” which is Midi Volume.
When using the internal sounds you don’t need this function on. It’s really for sending volume information to an external sound module when using the EWI as a midi controller. So, I suggest selecting the “OF” setting here.
You can do this by using the side keys as before and scrolling through the options of “Hr”, “Lr” and “OF”.
3 – Expression
Without pressing the “SETUP” key again, use the side keys until “EP” is displayed on the screen. This is the “Expression” setting for the EWI.
On the EWI5000 there are three options for this function: “OF” (off), “Lr” (low resolution) and “Hr” (high resolution). You can select these using the side keys once again. I have found choosing “Hr” works best.
If you have an older EWI4000s then you will just have the option of either off, or on for this setting. On is indicated by a red dot in the display as before.
4 – Breath Control
The final thing that’s essential to get your EWI setup correctly is to adjust the sensitivity of the breath sensor in the mouthpiece. To do this you use the physical “sound parameter” knobs found behind the cover panel at the top rear of the EWI.
Locate the “breath” knob at the top right of the cluster. Without touching any of the keys, wind this knob until the EWI just begins to play a note by itself. Note the number shown in the display when the sound first begins. To set the breath correctly, you want to wind the “breath” knob backwards till the display shows about 2 points below this. On most EWIs this is generally in the low 60’s.
If you have an older EWI4000s then your display won’t show a number when you make this adjustment. The same rule applies though, just back the knob down a little bit from where the sound first begins.
There are two settings for the breath control. We have just set the first or “Primary” control which determines how much air is required for the sound to start.
The “Secondary” setting determines the dynamic range you can get when blowing. This should be set about 10 points lower than the “Primary”. To set this, press the “Trans” button and wind the “breath” knob backwards till the display shows about 10 points lower than where you set your “Primary”.
All right – you’ve done the main setup now for your EWI and you are ready to play!
Technique Tips
There are a couple technique hurdles that every EWI player need to master in order to play freely.
Octaves
Moving between octaves can take some getting used to. I suggest placing your left thumb on the left edge of the rollers. You can then roll your thumb forward to use the “glide plate” on the right hand side of them.
When moving between octaves try using a rotating motion in your wrist. This way your thumb will rotate up or down to the next octave. Try the exercise below to get this movement really smooth.
Glitches
One of the biggest challenges with playing the EWI is getting extra “glitch” notes. This is almost always caused by lazy ring fingers on both hands. You can check this for yourself by trying to play the exercise below.
Spend some time on these type of exercises to train your ring fingers to move in time. This will sort nearly all of your glitch notes, but it might take some practice.
Final thoughts
The EWI Sound Editor software is really powerful. You can make all the adjustments above easily using this software. Just plug your EWI into your computer via USB once you have installed it and you’re ready to go.
If you have a spare 30 minutes I would really recommend going through each of the patches and increasing the volume settings.
You can easily make adjustments with the Sound Editor software.
This is really easy to do. Within the main page of the Editor, select a sound from the top dropdown menu and use the “Vol” slider to adjust volume. Experiment yourself with this but I generally find setting it at -2.0dB or -3.0dB works great. Click “SAVE” to store this to your EWI and repeat with each patch in the library.
To get the most out of your EWI it’s best to treat it like a separate instrument. It’s not a saxophone although the fingerings are the same. By approaching it like learning a new instrument and spending time to overcome the technique challenges, you will be able to make the most of the amazing potential it has. Happy learning!
RESOURCES:
Download: EWI5000UserGuideV100
About the author:
Bernie Kenerson is an AKAI artist and one of the leading experts on EWI in the USA. Check out Bernie’s site for more EWI resources, tips and techniques.