I am looking to by a breath controller for my K2500XS. I have no idea where to begin. What do I need to buy to get this stuff to work. What are the best controllers on the market.

-- Ben Morales (Music AB@aol.com), November 11, 1998

Answers

Breath controllers are made by Yamaha. The current version is the BC- 3, there have been BC-1 and BC-2's and could be some out there. The BC-3 and BC-2 fit on your head like a head microphone, the BC-1 is a small hand held unit. The Breath controller only responds to the amount of pressure when you blow into it, it doesn't have anything like a reed on it, or the ability to sense bite pressure. It can be assigned to modulate anything in the K2500 that responds to controllers. So you would have to program the patch to respond to it, or get one that is already programmed which is possible. There is a Yamaha WX-5 or 7 that looks sort of like a Clarinet. It has the fingering of one, and can control a lot more stuff with the reed, the bite, the fingering, the thumb wheel, and breath control. This would be the ultimate wind controller if you know how to play the clarinet, flute, sax, or some other simularly fingered instrument. But again you would need to program a sound to use all its features. Mark

-- Mark Sufferling (suff@execpc.com), February 16, 1999.

Casio made one in the 80's, kind of a midi sax-this alternative might be less expensive than the Yamaha, don't know what the current market price for this might be....

-- brian hamby (brianserenity@yahoo.com), July 14, 1999.

Re: Wind Controllers.

I've played saxophones for >30 years, and a WX-7 for >10 years.

The WX-series from Yamaha are excellent, professional-grade tools. Function is outstanding, with lip-pressure sending "after-touch", a pitch-bend-toggle, 7-0ctave range, sustain button, and good (though a bit slow) breath-to-volume function. The only problems seem to be reliability, since a lot of surface-mounted pressure-sensors and flexible-circuit-boards adds up to inherent problems over years of use. Since the action is quite different from an acoustic instrument, it takes a while to "get the feel of it", but I've never seen a better MIDI wind-controller and it's lots of fun to work with.

The Casio things were complete failures on all levels: ugly, non-functional, cheap feeling, etc. The most absurd aspect is that they work on _pressure_ not on _flow_, so you don't blow through them like a wind instrument, you force pressure into their sealed insides; this means you to have to exhale inbetween notes and makes these stupid things almost totally unplayable.

The Yamaha's are flawed but very functional musical instruments, while the Casio's are cheap stupid toys.

-- edo (ekorczynski@sbcglobal.net), February 04, 2003.