I educated myself on that through other sources so I didn’t take his criticism regarding fingerings that seriously.
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It’s breath condensation, not spit, which means it’s just water. You may test the puddle under a woodwind player yourself in any number of ways. Saliva is an issue at the mouthpiece, however, and my Aerophone came with a wristband to deal with that.
Coming from flute, I had no use for and couldn’t handle bite and reed modulation, using my lungs and breath pressure exclusively. I glued down the sides of a replacement mouthpiece to economize on air flow and eliminate bite control issues, which might also appeal to someone coming from melodica. The more economic air flow cuts water flow down to practically zero–which is welcome around electronics–and eliminates spit out the side of the mouthpiece entirely, which is even more welcome.
Nice to see you weigh in. I thought you gave up on this instrument based on your earlier posts - something about the ergonomics. I don’t mind being wrong though.
I take it you joined the club for the Pro’s microtuning capability.
Yeah, I moved on to the NuRAD, which passes zero air through, but my main (wind) ax over the past year has been Hammond’s electric melodica because playing it through the Axe-FX really transforms it.
The pro-level Aerophones shine most for sax players going electronic, but I can see going back to it someday, not just for variety, but also the quality of the built-in sounds. I do find the Aerophone almost dealbreakingly un-ergonomic because it works for me held in only one very specific sitting position. I miss, though, its surprisingly good speakers, which make the thing totally self-contained for personal jams.
I agree somewhat about the ergonomics of the pro Aeros. Not close to deal breaking for me but certainly not ideal. This is why I am happy my first Aerophone was the small Go model. I also scored that one for an unbelievable deal ($200). It remains just as valuable as my newer Pro-ish 20w model due to its light weight and compact build. I can play it anywhere and it fits in tiny gear bags.
The size and weight difference is huge. As such, the comfort, portability and opportunities to play/practice…just as different.
Yeah I use the NuRAD for more sitting actvities and fiddling around controlling synths at my desk
IMO even just making it one battery wider at the bottom part would have probably cut off a decent enough amount of length.
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Agreed. Still, as I sit here playing, I realize how spoiled we are.lol
This thing is magnificent and how lucky are we?
I’ve been writing/producing music for 2 decades now (45) and I feel like I’ve just found the perfect device. Excited to see how the next few weeks, months and years unfold now that I have a magical wand.
A few thoughts crept in and whispered if you had this tech 20 years ago things would be even better but the reality is I got it at just the right time.
The best thing about aging is being able to identify and afford things that serve, inspire and enhance the abilities, wisdom and understanding you’ve amassed en route.
An art director at a firm I contract with from time to time emailed me last week complimenting the sound of some commercial spots I submitted. Everything but the lyrics and drums were created with AE-20 and SP-404 in about an hour. Just some melodic scale licks with a variety of different sounds and drums patterns. It would have taken me atleast an afternoon to create the same package on a keyboard.
What a time to be alive.
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Alright, got the AE-20W. Excited to begin this journey. I’m pretty happy with how response the sounds are to breath. I may wait a while before digging into the weeds of adjusting the sensitivity settings for bite, etc.
I tried installing the USB driver, but I can’t get audio going through USB into my Macbook Pro. I then tried starting Ableton Live 11, selected the AE-20 as the audio input, but still could not get any incoming audio. Might be partly Live 11’s fault, as half the time I struggle to get incoming audio into Live 11 - one of several issues that make me hate working with a DAW and stick to hardware for the most part. There so many times that I set the USB audio ins and outs and still get no fucking sound, which drives me nuts - I just can’t figure out a best practices type of routine to get Live or any other DAW to work the same way, reliably, every single time.
Anyway… next accessory to order is a Y cable to get stereo audio out into the monitor speakers. I’ll probably just order the Roland one sold at Sweetwater unless someone has better ideas.
I forgot to click the In buttons under Monitor in Live 11. 
But now I have Aerophone audio going through the monitor speakers instead of the AE-20’s little onboard speakers. I do like those little onboard speakers as an option for focusing on practicing but it’s nicer to hear the sound through the bigger speakers too.
Still going to order the Roland Y-cable though so I don’t always have to have the computer involved.
Oh and the water basin fell off already. I think it stays secured to the AE-20 as long as I don’t let anything touch it. But it is easy to knock it off by letting it touch one’s own body, or a desk, or some other object when moving it around.
Definitely want to grab a y. I also grabbed a 1/4” UHF wireless audio transmitter/receiver which I plug into SP404, MC707, Model 12 mixer, interface, etc.
Looking into grabbing a tiny amp for portability. I’d like to be able to easily take it to whichever room I’m in to jam, entertain, serenade the wife, hit the beach, etc.
I love Teenage Engineering’s new speaker but it only has a 3.5 mm input. Still, if they make it in white I may grab it. I read that it has impressive amp circuitry a built in looper, effects, etc and I love the throwback boombox aesthetic with the built in FM 
antenna. Boss and Roland make keyboard amps that are alot more reasonably priced.
Cool, will order the Y cable soon.
I’m satisfied with my current amplification options:
- Mackie monitors plugged into Scarlett 18i8 audio interface which doubles as a mixer
- Line 6 Stagesource L2T powered speaker with instrument inputs
- Electrovoice ZXA-1 powered speaker
Being tethered to an AC power supply though is already getting old. I’ll probably buy NiMH batteries and charger.
I use a Powerowl charger that does 8 at once
looked at that Powerowl just now on Amazon 
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My NuRAD takes AAA so it’s nice using the same one for both the Aerophone and NuRAD
Got the Roland Black series Y-cable. At first I thought it might be defective. I couldn’t hear any sound through the Scarlett to monitor speaker setup or through the HX Stomp XL into the guitar amp.
Then I realized I had Speaker Setting on On (audio always goes out onboard speakers) and Volume Knob Mode set to Speaker Volume. I changed the former to Auto (onboard speakers stop outputting sound when headphones or cable are plugged in), and latter to Speaker and Output.
I’ll probably keep these settings, and set the Output Mode to Mono. This kind of defeats the purpose of getting the Y-cable but I like the idea of swapping a mono cable between electric guitar and Aerophone for home practice, and trying out Helix effects on the Aerophone. I’ll still use the onboard speakers when I want to go fully wireless for home practice.
Yes, I did get the NiMH batteries and charger to enable wireless practicing. So much nicer than being tethered to the AC adapter.
I also got the GEEK silicone mouthpiece. It doesn’t work with the bite sensor, but as a beginner my focus is more on learning the notes than working on my bite technique anyway. I’ll split time between this and the stock mouthpiece, using one when the other is drying from being washed.
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Bite sensor actually works great for me with the silicone mouthpiece. Had to adjust sensitivity to dial in to my preference as I initially found it too dramatic vs the stock piece.
Glad to hear things sound to be working out so far 
this viral clip has been going around — what exactly is he using here? not an aerophone or ewi nor one of those mouthpiece only controllers…
https://vxtwitter.com/buckadeath/status/1721376036003205591?s=46&t=sHemj-JbBA1TLbbf_X_AGg
Interesting, I can’t tell what the benefit of it is over the Big Boys? I’d feel very iffy about buying a homemade project with potentially zero support for issues.
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I can’t speak with any experience other than that it seems that users really love it.
However, it is an easy hard pass as I personally cant get past the aesthetic. It just looks ridiculous to me which is the mother of all deal breakers.