There's a lot about this instrument to like.
I still don't even have one sound down yet. I believe it was the Klosé method for clarinet that has an introductory quote that points to smoothness as the defining characteristic of a good instrumentalist. I have managed to achieve true smoothness on only one instrument, the WX-7, but I can more or less fake smooth on a bunch of other instruments.
Sometimes the controls on instruments are sufficiently wild that you can never get smoothness on them. That's the difference between a toy instrument and a real instrument.
The jury is still out for me as to whether one can get smoothness on this instrument but the videos are fairly convincing.
I think the 18 switch layout is brilliant. These double-four scale patterns are really nice. I'm still trying to get my head around it.
I complained before about not having octave keys to get around but I'm thinking the key will be learning interesting finger patterns in these scales. And custom scales. See a later post about software.
The switches are fairly uniform. And these things tend to get better as you go.
I'll get back to you to see if the "bending on each switch" idea is good. I have an idea to improve it in software...
Having an integrated looper is a good idea. You can get a lot of toy pieces out of this but it's going to be hard to actually do anything practical because there is no sync.
The slider is actually really nice. I'll bet I'll get used to the dead zones. And I have a great idea for that in software too... see later for both of those.
The breath control section is mostly unrealized for me in the current software. The breath cello's pretty good! More practice is needed.
In the "clarinet" mode, a note should sound when you blow with no keys held down.
Soon I'm going to try hooking this to my Yamaha VL-70 which is mondo breath sensitive.
Physically, I really like the bendy tube to blow through!! Great move. Considering the number of times I've stepped on the WX-7's cord and blasted it out of my mouth, I'm astonished I haven't lost a few teeth.
The wind throughput, how much air the thing lets through it, is quite low - very good move - I'd personally have it even lower because I like sensitivity and circular breathing. I have a little rubber plug in the WX-7...
Given that you are allowing the thumb rests to move a little up and down, why not a lot more up and down?
UK
