Cool Toy!!!

[Bugler90]

Check this toy out looks really cool.


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

[trpt.hick]

We all knew it was just a matter of time!

I can't wait for the model that simply hooks up to the player's brain and can play with no hands, lips, or breath!

I couldn't get the video to play on my computer. Drat! Anyone else see it? What did you think of it?

DH

[ustacouldplay]

I got the video and audio to play...seperately. Visually, it looks like the guy is playing the dog-crap out of the thing. Unfortunately, It sounds like a synthesized clarinet to me. But it does seem to at least pick up the guy's intended dynamics and even vibrato. It definitely looks like it'd be fun to mess around on once in a while but it's a long way from the real thing.

Edited to add:
Well, after actually reading, I guess the sound can be changed since it seems this is just some sort of fancy MIDI controller. So I guess you can make the thing sound like whatever sounds you can get out of your sound module. Now I definitely want to play with one!
_________________
John Ford's next stop:

[_FELIX C]

Rare stuff but I prefer traditional
_________________
God's Peace be with all you!!!!!!!!
Kanstul Chicago 1001
GR65M
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Benge 3 Flugelhorn
Schilke 14F4
I use my Personal Blend of Valve Oil

[WAKeele]

BOO!
_________________
WAK
Ace Hardware Hoseophone w/heavy-weight funnel
Bach 20C Megatone (gold plated) w/ 30 throat
Handguard once believed to be used by Arban
$10,000 Stoneline mute bought on eBay

[trpt.hick]

Yeah, it fascinates me, too. Kinda like when I was a toddler and was fascinated with banging the keys on a piano!

[nextbrassguy]

This seems a bit like a controlled substance: I might want to try it once, but I sure wouldn't want to get hooked!!!

[FatPauly]

I, for one, would love to have one of these. I have all kinds of synthesizers around the house, and using a trumpet as a controller for them would be outrageous! Sadly, when I last heard a price for this, it was in the $2500 neighborhood. Too rich for my blood.

I bet guys like Eric Bolvin and Lou Guarino, Jr., could put this to good use. All those old Akai and Steiner EVI are roadkill when this hits the pavement.

On the down side, could you imagine trying to explain to Airport Security what the farg this is?

- Paul Artola
Ellicott City, Maryland

[elExtranjero]

I've been watching this type of equipment in guitars for some years. Line6 (www.line6.com) has several guitars and amps that you can plug together and turn a knob to sound like 'Purple Haze' 'Smoke on the water' 'Voodoo Child' etc. They're becoming more popular with two crowds:

The pros that don't want to take their 59 Les Pauls or 52 Tele's on the road like them because they get close enough to to mimick the real thing in a stage environment (although NOT in a studio environment).

The cover bands that don't want to have four guitars on stage to play different tunes.

The line6 starts out with an acoustic signal though, and modifies that to get the desired end. I predict this trumpet will be replaced by something along the lines of the Yamaha Silent Brass. The trumpet will generate acoustic signals that will be modified to be 'Kind of Blue' or 'Valentine'.
_________________
el Extranjero de la tierra extraña

[mulligan stew]

I'm sure James Morrison can make this thing sound great, but I don't dig it at all--or any kind of fake-synth trumpet. There are plenty of ways to play a real trumpet through all kinds of digital effects; even midi-controlled ones. I don't see why anyone would want to lose the real playing experience--the true, acoustic, tactile experience of playing trumpet.
_________________
Scott
My trio:

https://vectortrio.bandcamp.com/

[elExtranjero]

[jazztrumpet86]

I have actually been in contact with Steven Marshall for the last 2 years and I received my MDT 2 weeks ago.

It is awesome, and with the Turbo charged Vl70m from Matt Traum at patchman, the sounds sound realistic. I prefer the non-emulative sounds for weather report types of sounds.

If anyone is really interested in knowing Steve Marshall's email address PM me. ONLY SERIOUS BUYERS!, NOT JUST FOR INFORMATION! Mine was the 5th off the line and the first batch was only 50.

[joetriscari]

Nothing against the inventor...
But, I think it really SUCKS!
I must be old school...I have to here it coming out of a piece of Brass!
Sincerely,
Joe Triscari

[flugle-me-elmo]

Here's the thing...

It's a matter of viewpoint. You can't look at this as a synthesizer trying to be a trumpet...you have to look at it like a trumpet trying to be a synthesizer. This isn't a trumpet...it is a device that allows a musician comfortable with the mechanics of trumpet (i.e. the years of fingering exercises, scales, etc) to produce sounds he/she otherwise could NOT. If you are playing in some situation and suddenly would like to rip out a wicked jazz bassoon solo...I doubt that you'd be inclined to take the years of practice to develop bassoon technique, purchase the unbelievably expensive instrument and then tote it to the gig just for that one tune. However, with this instrument you can go into that kind of sound (and Bassoon sounds in particular are often fairly realistic with this technology). This is another offspring of the other EVI/EWI (Electronic Valve Instrument, Electronic Woodwind Instrument) family. Michael Breckor played the EWI a great deal, but he would have his tenor sax on stage too. When he wanted to play tenor, he did it on...guess what...the tenor sax! But when he wanted to play lines with polyphony, consistency of sound throughout upwards (or "downwards") of 7-8 octaves, or some other crazy stuff he went with his EWI to acheive that...and it is an awesome auditory adventure ride! Someone in the crowd that goes, "Well, THAT just doesn't sound like a saxophone" just doesn't get it.

Thanks to a headsup from a TH post I actually recently aquired an old Akai EVI-1000 from ebay for use with my compositions. This is just another example of these kinds of instruments' use. I am trying to go into the film music industry via a wonderful program here at the Berklee College of Music, and one thing that they now say is very standard for directors to want are "mock-ups" of the score BEFORE the recording session goes down for several thousand dollars. These mock-ups are almost always done almost exclusively with MIDI and sampled instruments. The exception is when a solo is in there that is too expressive for a keyboard or sequencing program to clunk out without going through with some heavy-duty tweaking (which film composers don't have the time for), so many times a soloist might be brought in to play the solo. This might be a friend of the composer or a business contact but is still rarely free, and has to be scheduled, recorded in the composers studio, etc, etc, etc. With my new EVI and some good sound modules I can make a believable, expressive solo with breathe sensitivites, nounce, vibrato, etc in a single pass through recording and it's all free and I didn't have to learn how to play Incan Flute! If the director likes how that music basically sounds then at the recording session I will certainly step down and let the Incan Flute player blow, but I got to that stage from my simple "mock-up".

Non-emulative sounds, however, could very well be the strength of these instruments. I just layed down a track for a funk tune with my EVI and it was unbelievable fun because I had this great funky wah-wah "modular" fat synth going, I did huge smooth slides across 5 octave gaps, made some crazy atonal noise-music by basically freaking out with all the buttons (valves), and doubled the funk bass part in the middle. This was AWESOME and I could never do it with trumpet. It was fun, musical, expressive, contrasting, dynamic, vocal, and enjoyable in a way that I can't acheive on trumpet in that kind of setting with slap bass guitar, phaser electric guitar, and funky drums. But here I could play this stuff without needing to be a keyboard wiz, and really outplaying the keyboard in terms of humanity of sound with the sensitive breath controllers in wind synths. If I was playing "So What" in an acoustic jazz quartet setting, I would plug by 9C in my old Yamaha trumpet and blow the best I know how, but I do believe in "The Right Tool for the Job", and this wind controller is the epitomy of that statement.

As an aside...there are also surely people out there who can no longer play trumpet or their wind instrument due to physical injury. In fact, I believe David Baker of the jazz improvising book-writer fame, was a phenomenal trombonist before getting in some kind of car crash or something that ruined his lips or something (obviously I don't remember exactly) but now he has switched to cello. Had he been a trumpeter, he would now have a possiblility at continuing to enjoy the "tactile" (as another poster brought up) sense of playing trumpet, and express his music.

So remember...this instrument is not a trumpet. It's a controller of 0's and 1's (good old binary) in a digital instrument interface of sorts. This is a wholly separate instrument with it's own challenges and rewards.

Chris

[Kateeba]

Hey Scott You said: I don't see why anyone would want to lose the real playing experience--the true, acoustic, tactile experience of playing trumpet.

As you know, I play the Akai Steinerphone. The thing to remember here is that I don't miss out on any kind of playing experience because I approach this as a COMPLETLY different instrument. It's like if I played guitar or keyboards BESIDES playing trumpet. The only similarity is that I can play it BECAUSE it has similar trumpet fingering. But that is where the similarity ends. I NEVER use trumpet patches because I think they all suck. I uaually always work with "other" sounds that I find interesting. The nice thing for me, is to be able to have literaly thousands of different sounds (only limited by the number of disks for my sampler or synthesizer modules I have) that I can play and manipulate. This is great when writing things into my sequencer because my keyboard skills are nowhere near as good as my trumpet skills. So, for example, even if I wanted to write a bass line, it would be much harder for me to do it on keyboard, but if I use the steinerphone, I can do it easily, because I am more familiar with the fingerings, .............and............since the sequencer writes out anything it has in it, I also get the computer to write out that part too.

Also, it is fun to solo with my trumpet, then pick this up and get a totally different prospective on the piece I am playing on BECAUSE it IS so different.

Again, I don't EVER think about instruments like these substituting for my trumpet, but when approached as a totally different instrument, it can be fun, creative, and a very rewarding experience.

I just noticed that Yamaha has one out too now.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/5336778456722978/

With these controllers, you can play all dynamics from very soft to loud, just by blowing louder or softer, there is NO embouchure necessary, you can bend notes up or down, you can add vibrato from the most minute, to as heavy as you would want, you can glissendo up or down from one note to any other, you can even play chords, and you can tongue notes. Now add that you can do that to ANY sound you can think of, and it becomes very intriguing, at least for me.

What's fun, is when you get into layering different sounds from different synths to come up with some sound that never existed. When you learn to play these instruments well, they are no toy, and no joke.

Of course I realize that everyone is not into synthesized sounds and many purists who ONLY feel the particular vibration from an acoustic instrument is the only true sound to make music with, will not like this. And I say to you. Fine. I can respect that, but if you feel a sound is a sound, and if you can take that sound, and shape it and manipulate it in ANY way shape or fashon to make it do what you want it to to express yourself, you can open doors and have a lot of fun "Playing" (isn't that what we do with sound?) with these instruments.



Lou
_________________
Louis Guarino Jr.
Hear my music at: www.enchantedvibrations.net

[flugle-me-elmo]

Lou,

Kinda looks like we must have been writing at the same time! You obviously have much more experience with these instruments than I do. I'm still trying to figure out all the envelopes and filters and adjustments I can make with new patches (Though I have made a fairly decent emulative Tuba patch). I've heard poor-ish things about the new Yamaha addition. Are you on the Yahoo Wind Controller mailing list? I've learned a lot about modules from it already (though it's mostly WX5 players, with only a few EVIs thrown in the mix).

I like the clips on your website, sounds great! You gotta throw some more EVI stuff on there though!

Chris

[Kateeba]

Chris

You are right. We must have posted around the same time, because I didn't see your post when I wrote mine. Had I seen it, I wouldn't have written mine, since we were saying essentially the same thing.

Thanks for the compliments on my music. Those clips are just little 1 minute samples of what is on my CD, and as much as I enjoy the Steinerphone (Akai EVI), I play my trumpet a lot more. There are 2 pieces on my CD that I did use the Steinerphone on; Mirrors, and Amnesia, so there is more EVI playing on my CD than what you hear there.

As far as the envelopes and patches, you can spend years learning and noodling around with them. These EVI's are very complicated and can do so much. When I first got mine, I read the book cover to cover, tried programing, bought some patches, searched for more information on it, and really attempted to learn a lot about it. After that, it was more about using it and learning to finger it, because it IS a bit different from the trumpet. There is the 4th key bar and the octive barrel to get used to in order to learn to play it. I had to practice chromatic and regular scales all over again to get it under my fingers.

I am not on the Yahoo list you mentioned. I have not bought any patches for my EVI in a long time. Mostly, I blend it's sounds with other synths to get layered sounds.

Lou
_________________
Louis Guarino Jr.
Hear my music at: www.enchantedvibrations.net

[mulligan stew]

Hey Lou--

good coupla posts. Of course you are right--it's just a different instrument, and best approached as such.

Scott
_________________
Scott
My trio:

https://vectortrio.bandcamp.com/

[EBjazz]

I've been playing the EVI for over 20 years now. I love it!
Patchman Music does all my programming.
I've got a video on my site of my group and moi playing EVI ( and some trumpet!)
You can access the video from the home page in my sig.

Eb
_________________
Eric Bolvin
http://bolvinmusic.com/product/the-modern-jazz-trumpet-method/
www.bolvinmusic.com

[jazztrumpet86]