Well done video.

I’ve always thought the “Reed Geek” was sorta bullshit. Way too expensive, and you can do all that stuff with a knife. Now their secret is out.

With the plethora of new “EWIs” out, which I would say fail to really capture what the instrument is, we now have this. Which looks like it is coming soon!

Should be the song of the 2020 year.

  You Need To Calm Down by Taylor Swift for Eb Instruments (118.2 KiB, 3 hits)
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  You Need To Calm Down by Taylor Swift for Bb Instruments (119.2 KiB, 1 hits)
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The Woodwind & Brasswind posted a video of Ben Wendel showing his pedal board.

One of my “quarantine” projects has been figuring out a good performance pedal board for if/when it is safe to go out and perform again. Let’s dive a little deeper and figure out what exactly his setup is.

First off, it is a mess. Seriously Ben, you shoot this video in a room that is clean, and looks great. But the cables for your pedals? Maddening……a disaster Ben. FEMA has been notified. 1/2 a Beard if it was on Riffs, Beards and Gear. You need a board, and clean cables. How can you show up with that mess? Yikes.

Ok, so, the actual gear. Ben pretty much spells out what he has except for two KEY items. The microphones. Which is sort of important. The best I can tell he is using a AEA N8 Ribbon Microphone as his “dry” saxophone mic. Which is awesome. But…..it needs phantom power. So where is the phantom power for the mic? I don’t see it on the board. The “effects mic” seems to be a Sennheiser e908b microphone, another mic that needs phantom power.

Also, is there an iPad or something on the stand?

Here is the list of equipment I see:
AEA N8 Ribbon Microphone – $1099.00
Sennheiser e908b – $279.95
Mooer Volume Pedal – $85.00
Boss RV-3 Reverb/Delay – $148.00
Mosky Mini Obsessive Overdrive – $33.99
Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork – $174.40
TC Electronics Ditto – $109.99
Boss RC-30 – $299.99
MXR Mini ISO-Brick – $99.99

Yes. That song.

  Dynamite by BTS for Eb Instruments (152.6 KiB, 2 hits)
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  Dynamite by BTS for Bb Instruments (158.5 KiB, 2 hits)
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Nice song by Conan Gray.

  Heather by Conan Grey for Eb Instruments (107.1 KiB, 0 hits)
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  Heather by Conan Grey for Bb Instruments (104.5 KiB, 2 hits)
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“The YDS-150 effectively emulates an authentic saxophone experience digitally—from the sound and key layout to feedback from the instrument—while maintaining the sense of unity between the saxophone and musician. The Digital Saxophone breaks the barrier to entry for new or returning musicians providing the ability to quickly express themselves creatively and musically.Unlike MIDI Wind Controllers, the YDS-150 incorporates a key structure that replicates that of a traditional saxophone, offering players the natural feel to which they are accustomed. A genuine brass bell enhances the acoustic presence of the instrument thanks to the company’s new proprietary Integrated Bell Acoustic System technology. The sound and vibration of the speaker unit at the top of the instrument are transmitted to the bell through the sound pipe, and in turn, the instrument itself vibrates similarly to a traditional saxophone. Vibrations are carried to the mouth and fingertips through the mouthpiece and keys to give players authentic instrumental feedback. What’s more, the Digital Saxophone sings with longer reverberation thanks to the brass bell, making it possible for musicians to play in a naturally expressive way.“

Kinda of a crap demo, but it looks better than Akai’s EWI solo.

How do you take the venerable Akai EWI, and make it total garbage? You strip away the wireless, make it longer, and give it a shitty speaker.

For your pleasure, the “geniuses” at Akai have brought forth…..the EWI Solo.

I like how he’s using Mainstage, and another controller taped(?) to his EWI. Wild stuff!

One of my favorite songs. So simple….so great.

  Yellow by Coldplay for Eb Instruments (103.1 KiB, 7 hits)
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  Yellow by Coldplay for Bb Instruments (103.6 KiB, 3 hits)
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Nice little song.

  Hold On by Chord Overstreet for Eb Instruments (95.7 KiB, 3 hits)
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  Hold On by Chord Overstreet for Bb Instruments (94.6 KiB, 3 hits)
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Covid-19 lockdown has lead to some experimentation. And some rethinking of what I wanted the pedal board to be able to do.

First, when doing gigs, sometimes you get a venue where they insist on doing their own sound. Fine. But then they have a “board” which has 16 inputs. And the keyboard player needs stereo input. And so does the guitarist. And the singer’s multi-effects pedal is stereo. And so…..there are now no inputs left. So the EWI you brought along can’t be used.

OR the venue has a “sound guy” who’s really just there for the free drinks and the people. The “sound guy” is not going to be adjusting any volumes. Well, depends if he has a drink or not.

And….what if you want to run the EWI through an effects chain? And the sax? Can you do both at the same time?

Pedalboard 1.0 attempted to address this by using the Eventide MixingLink. However, I could never get the volumes of the two inputs to be close to the same. Generally, the sax mic was a lot louder than the EWI. Even with the MXR MicroAmp on it, it was sort of hit and miss.

Pedalboard 2.0 didn’t really fix the problem of the EWI, and introduced a POG, and a Pageturner.

Pedalboard 3 ushered in a smaller board, and me giving up on trying to get the EWI on the effects chain. Pedalboard 3.1 had some changes. I dumped the POG, added a reverb, and made an Arduino page turner. The EWI was still not included.

Which now brings us to Pedalboard 4.0……