The EWI 1000 and the EWV 2000 are part of a series of electronic wind instruments developed by saxophonist Nyle Steiner. In 1975, he launched the first model, the Steiner EVI for brass players, which was simply a controller with a connection to other instruments. The instrument was further developed in 1980 in collaboration with Crumar. Steiner also built the woodwind version EWI and developed a MIDI interface around 1985. In 1987, Akai licensed Steiner's designs and released the Akai EVI 1000 wind controller and the EWI 1000 woodwind controller together with the corresponding EWV 2000 sound module.
The EWV 2000 is a dual VCO monosynth module with 64 voices, options for ramp, triangle and square waves, two fully independent filters and amplifiers and a comprehensive set of control parameters. Vibrate information can be routed to VCO, PWM, VCF, VCA and Pitch Bend, Breath pressure to VCO, PWM, VCF, Filter Resonance and VCA. The VCO, VCF and VCA work independently. The EWV can process a sound generated by a slave instrument under MIDI control. This is done via an audio input that is routed to the VCA, VCF etc. of oscillator one. Although the EWV is a mono synthesizer, it can transmit four-part chords via MIDI. It offers a choice of 14 chords, from minor and sevenths to sus 4 and 6/9. Any note can be programmed to create a chord accompaniment. (Source: muzines)
