With regard to realism, a wind controller will allow you to better shape the notes through breath but keep in mind that you will not have real-time access to all the controllers that contribute much to the realistic sound of these virtual instruments.

That being said, I think it is very much worth it to have a wind controller in your arsenal as this fine control of volume will speed rendering time greatly.

Plus, as you mentioned, it will be great fun and gosh darn it, isn't that the most important thing of all?

I used the wind controller for the first time tonight - It actually freaked me out a bit.. I'm a recorder player, whistler, oboeist and general wind player of many years professionally and as a midi geek I genuinely didn't realise how realistic these things are.
I played the trumpet and the sax and it took about ten minutes for me to figure out that I could do WAY more on this already than i can on the keyboard - and I'm a proficient keyboardist...

Mind you, I haven't figured out the best way to set pedals and controllers for mutes, growl etc - there must be a sensible way to do it, but I haven't worked it out yet... any EWI players have a workflow with the trumpet they can share?

By the way - haven't had so much fun in ages....

Hi,

With the ewi 4000 s you can assign all controllers you need using the pitch up/down plates and the 2 buttons on the upper side ...

I use one button to put on the mute of the trumpet and the other to swap the volume controle of the host between trumpet and sax.

pitch up for pitch up on the sax and pitch down for command the growl ... it's easy to set up.

Regards,