Jay C. Easton: Wind Synthesizer

Wind Controller Information
for Composers

I use a Yamaha WX-5 Wind controller with a Yamaha VL-70m Virtual Acoustic synthesizer for solo voices, and a Yamaha MU-50 (GM-XG) synthesizer for standard MIDI sounds.

I am looking primarily for audience-friendly pieces or arrangements that can demonstrate this instrument's expressive capabilities, especially for wind controller and piano or electronic tape.

What is a wind controller? Most electronic synthesizers or tone generators are controlled by a piano-style keyboard. A wind controller simply allows the same type of synth/tone generator to be controlled by a woodwind-style interface instead.
The WX-5 can be written for like any woodwind- it fingers and articulates like a flute or saxophone, it is breath sensitive, you can change pitch and volume through embouchure control, so it is capable of playing melodic lines with agility and great expressivity.

Unlike traditional woodwinds, however, it has a six-octave range, and it can sound like just about anything imaginable.

I use two tone generators

The VL-70m Virtual Acoustic synthesizer:
This is a box designed for solo voices- rather than using wave-table synthesis or sampling to create sounds, its internal computer actually builds a virtual model of, say, a clarinet air column, and then puts virtual air through it. It also can build a virtual violin or guitar string, and then make a virtual bow or fingernail to set it into virtual vibration! The resulting instrument-sounds tend to have great expression and nuance, and they behave somewhat like an acoustic instrument- it is possible to do lip-slurs on a virtual trumpet or squeak on a virtual saxophone.
Some of the sounds are quite realistic, though most still sound synthesized. The best uses of this synthesizer to my mind are to take more traditionally electronic (analog synth type) sounds and lend them the expressivity of a wind instrument, and to take imitations of real instruments and hybridize them- for instance, you can take a simulation of a musical saw, and give it breath attacks; or a simulated piccolo can be fitted with a virtual violin bow to alter the sound.
This synth is somewhat programmable, but it is limited in that it doesn't really have any piano/organ/percussion type sounds to speak of.
The Yamaha MU-50 GM-XG tone generator: This is a basic MIDI synth, with the full complement of the 124 standard MIDI sounds, plus some variants. It responds well to the expressive capabilitiess of the WX-5, but many of the sounds aren't as nice as on the VL-70M. It does have keyboard and drum kit sounds, but the drum kits aren't very effective with the wind controller, and should be written for carefully. The other advantage of the MU-50 is that it allows for limited polyphonic capability-
mainly, you can set a fixed interval in harmony (e.g. open 5ths or octaves,) and you can have a note held while a melodic line continues over the top.

Effects: The wind synth can be put through reverb, distortion, pitch shift, harmonizer, Leslie (rotating) speaker, wah-wah...

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