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| 2024-12-08 15:07:38+00:00 | A quick update about how I'm getting on with my windsynth after a few weeks of ownership. | false |
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3 Weeks With my AE-10 | posts | /2024/12/8/3-weeks-with-ae10 |
Just under 3 weeks ago I received my Roland Aerophone AE-10 wind synth in the post. I've been playing the saxophone, off-and-on and as an amateur, for about 20 years and I've got a soprano, an alto and a tenor already. However, I was attracted to the idea of a wind synth since it allows me to practice my finger-work and scales without disturbing my neighbours, the cats or Mrs R. I made the purchase well aware that it wouldn't help much with mouth technique/embouchure and that I still need to practice the "real" sax as well.
Although I've not been here much for the last week, 3 weeks in and playing the AE-10 when I get a few spare minutes has already been a blast. Here's how I've been getting on with it so far.
First Impressions
The AE-10 has a built in speaker which means you can just turn it on and start playing immediately. There are buttons on the back for selecting tones and I spent the first hour of ownership switching through all the built-in tones and riffing. There's something quite satisfying about playing the clean guitar riff from "Enter Sandman" and the synth melody from "The Final Countdown" on a saxophone-shaped synth.
Audio Connectivity
I tried connecting up some headphones within a few minutes. I've got a pair of Bose QC45 headphones which I connected to the synth's output port via a physical cable and a cheap 3.5mm to 6.35mm jack plug adapter. I noticed the sound was a bit faint and ghostly until I fiddled with the wire and adjusted the jack a little bit. This does seem to happen periodically so I just have to adjust when I notice it. I don't have another jack adapter so I don't know if the problem is with the cheap adapter or the instrument itself. I'm going to assume its the adapter for now.
Another fairly cool feature of the instrument is that it has a 3.5mm audio input so you can play backing tracks and they come through with the sound of the instrument itself. I was a bit unsure why the output is 6.35mm and the input is 3.5mm but I'm not an audio buff so there might be a valid reason? I bought myself a cheap bluetooth audio transmitter and receiver off Amazon which allows me to stream music from my phone to the device without a physical cable getting in the way. It can also be used in transmit mode meaning that I could theoretically use my headphones in wireless mode. I suppose I could buy another bluetooth adapter and have one transmitting and one receiving from my phone.
Power and Mobility
The AE-10 comes with a mains adapter which is fine but does require that you're plugged in at all times and the cable is a little bit short so if you get carried away jamming you could accidentally pull it out of the socket. It can operate without the mains adapter if you install 6xAA batteries in it. Initially I tried using NIMH rechargeables but it seemed that they did not put out enough voltage to run the device. I bought some disposable alkaline batteries and they seemed to do the trick. The official docs do seem to suggest that NIMH rechargeables are supported so maybe it was just that the ones I tried to use were old or not fully charged or something.
MIDI and Music Production
I've not had much time to get deeply into music production with the AE-10 yet. However, I did have an initial attempt at getting my instrument to talk to my Ubuntu computer over USB. The instrument does not come with a USB-A to USB-B cable. I had one lying around from a long-dead printer but you can pick them up pretty cheaply these days.
Initially I had quite a lot of pain trying to get the instrument to talk to Ubuntu over midi. I tried installing Ardour but found the UX a little bit overwhelming for a newbie. A friend recommended Reaper which is not free/open source but has Linux builds and a generous evaluation/trial period. On first inspection, the UX seems clean and simple compared to Ardour. It did take me a really long time to get any kind of signal out of the instrument into my computer after messing around for a while with JACK and PulseAudio and ALSA. I've still not quite got it working exactly as I'd like. Now I just need to get hold of some cool instrument noises/samples.
Conclusion
Generally speaking I'm pretty happy with the AE-10 so far. I think it has a few rough edges that the fancier AE-30 probably smooths but at half the price, the AE-10 seems to be a great entrypoint for saxophonists looking to mess about with wind synths.