In another article I wrote already about the Sylphyo, an electronic wind instrument, I bought this year in February. During the lockdown, I had much time to remember, relearn and train recorder fingerings learned half a century ago. In summer however I was not so disciplined.
My favourite configuration to play the Sylphyo is with Mainstage3 and samples of real instruments. It’s really fun to have an instrument that can sound like any real or digital instrument. Of course, the best virtual instruments for the Sylphyo are those that are normally controlled by breath, i.e. woodwinds. My most preferred are clarinet and some exotic flutes like the indian bansuri. Unfortunately I didn’t find a convincing virtual saxophone until now, at least not for free.
I recorded some examples: The first piece is Arirang, a corean folk song, played on a virtual ocarina.
The next one is “Happy Birthday” played on an english horn.
The italian partisan song “Bella Ciao” is played on a clarinet:
The little tune I composed myself, is played with the virtual synthesizer sound “acid pulsewave”:
Because it’s nearly Christmas, “Leise rieselt der Schnee” on an indian bansuri flute.
Another exotic flute: Beethoven’s “Ode an die Freude” on a turkish kaval:
And last but not least the famous Christmas song, “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” played on a virtual traverse flute:
Update 2022
I still like playing with sampled instruments, but in the meantime I bought three software instruments, which are based on physical modeling. With this method the software simulates the physical properties of an instrument, calculating the sound in real time.
The first instrument I bought was Respiro by Imoxplus. I like it because it’s very responsive to breath and to the other sensors of the Sylphyo. There are a lot of presets for different instruments. Respiro doesn’t try as much to copy real wind instruments. It is a very good possibility to harvest the possibilities of electronic instruments with a wind controller. Here is an old folk song played on Respiro with a saxophonlike instrument preset called “Presence Sax“:
In the beginning of January I decided to invest my money in a synthetical clarinet by SWAM by Audio Modeling. While version 2 was still a combination of samples and physical modelling, version 3 which is now sold is pure physical modeling. For me its sound is pretty close to a clarinet. Here an example, how it sounds:
My latest and cheapest purchase was EVI-NER from Davidson Audio & Multimedia. This VST3-Plugin costs only 15 Dollars and is really amazing for brass instruments like trumpets. Im still puzzling out the astonishing possibilities of its configurations. As Respiro, it is the work of a single person. Therefore it lacks online tutorials and support. But it is really incredible for its price: