All lights go green! Akai APC40 in action.

Ableton Live & Akai APC40 from Sound Recipes on Vimeo.

This video has been making the rounds this week. The new Akai APC40 Ableton Controller definitely seems to be the one to go to for controlling Live at the moment. If nothing else it sure looks pretty!

Want some more APC40 videos? Check out Ableton’s offical intro video: click here and Akai’s own promo video: click here

Are you going to get one of these?

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This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on May 14, 2009 at 5:38 am, filed under Ableton Live, hardware and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Akai, Akai APC40, controller. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.

Akai EWI USB. Electronic Wind Instrument.

Since the release of the very first Akai EWI, pronounced like “Kiwi”, acronym for Electronic Wind Instrument was released in 1987 I wanted one. There’s nothing more expressive than the human mouth so even though my lips never touched an EWI I assumed these would sound unique. I have no desire to be a traditional Sax player but imagine adding 16 bars or highly expressive wind driven sound behind your second verse. As I mentioned I never did buy and EWI. When they were release I was 17 years old and anything well over $1000 was going towards a car.

So today I was surprised and happy to see an all new EWI is being released. The new EWI is whistling my name louder than ever because the new kid retails for only $299 and connects via USB. The only thing I dislike about the EWI-USB is that it’s missing the glide plate which I think is pretty important for a wind instrument to have. Maybe the EWI 4000 is the still the better choice? Perhaps a EWI-5000 with USB is also on the way?

The EWI USB comes with it’s own software synth called Aria but the first thing I would do is pair the hardware with NI Massive or an Ableton Simpler patch loaded a sample with my own voice screaming.

Here’s some more resources about EWI’s:

Wind controller FAQ, forum and soundbanks – Patchmanmusic
Great EWI site: www.ewi-evi.com
See the EWIs videos on YouTube: click here
Harmony-Central EWI reviews: click here

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This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on November 14, 2008 at 4:18 am, filed under hardware and tagged Akai, Akai EWI, Electronic Wind Instrument. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.

How we use to do it! Energy Flash tribute.

In the early 90s I was in several techno acts. To toot my own horn a little I have over 75 12″ singles out there. This video reminds me how John Selway and I as Disintegrator used to make music. The guy in this (awesome) video is covering the classic track Energy Flash by Joey Beltram. I really loved watching this. Seeing the Akai discs and Mackie mixer being muted/unmuted again was cool. Thanks for the flashback attack!

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This entry was written by Oliver Chesler, posted on January 28, 2008 at 11:33 am, filed under hardware, music, video and tagged Akai, Disintegrator, Joey Beltram, mackie. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.