I've had an out tune problem with the EWI-4000s while playing sample modeling Trumpet and Trombone and over the last month or 2 reported it on the samplemodeling forum. No one had any ideas on how to fix this problem. After a number of experimentss and some of tech support phone call to Kontakt (Akai was useless) I eliminated software as a cause for the problem and gradually decided that the problem lay within the EWI-4000s itself.

I'm reprinting the solution because you cannot read the samplemodeling forum unless you are logged in, yet this information should be more widely available.

The EWI-4000s out of tune problem has been solved. I found the answer on Patchman Music's FAQ.
(Akai has never answered my e-mail in over 4 weeks time)

http://www.patchmanmusic.com/WindControllerFAQ.html

It's a very, very long single page of information, so I have taken the liberty of summarizing the instructions.

The problem was that the Bend Sensors were out of calibration. There are two little analog knobs under the black access cover (PB A and PB W) that control the bend function.

1 Press Setup button to get into adjustment mode so that the display shows AD (mode).

2 Release the Setup button and you should see LED below the Setup button lit (left side, bottom).

In my case the LED segment on the right, top was also lit up - indicating that the bend sensor was not centered.

3 By gently adjusting the little PB A knob (under the black access cover), I made this second LED segment go out, or appear on the bottom. The pitch is correctly calibrated when the second LED segment is unlit meaning that the pitch is properly CENTERED.

I checked the pitch by using an Audio Tuning Meter, and it showed the pitch was now correct. I played a G and the meter showed a perfect G.

Problem solved. I must have inadvertently moved the PB A knob, when I was adjusting some other parameter with one of these little knobs.

I hope this is useful to anyone else who ever has this problem.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

I thank Matt Traum (Patchman) for publishing an incredibly useful FAQ for Windcontroller players. His custom patches for the Roland JV-1080 are incredibly good (esp Bass Sax, Trombone). The excellent Trombone patch is second only to the Samplemodeling Trombone.


Last edited by Dan Tong; 07/17/10 05:28 PM.
Dan

https://soundcloud.com/dstong