Vindor Music let us know that it is now shipping the ES1 – a new electronic wind instrument that’s designed to be affordable and easy to learn.
Held and played like a saxophone, the Vindor ES1 is designed to be affordable and durable. Vindor Music ran a successful crowdfunding campaign last year to fund the first batch.
With touchpads that mirror a saxophone’s keys, the Vindor ES1 offers a very quick learning experience compared to a traditional saxophone. Many of the initial difficulties in learning a woodwind instrument are removed, so musicians can quickly get started with it.
The Vindor ES1’s headphone jack lets players practice anywhere, without worrying about distracting others. The amplifier jack makes it possible to play with a band or in a performance space.
The instrument is also MIDI-compatible and can work with MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS.
Features:
- Headphone jack
- ¼” line output jack
- Built-in speaker
- MIDI through USB, compatible with MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS
- Rechargeable battery with 4 hours of play time
- Motion-sensitive pitch bending
- Capacitive touch keys
- Standard clarinet mouthpiece
- 4-octave range
- Transposition to any key
- Built-in programmable synthesizer
- 3 oscillators, low-pass filter, and modulation
- Sample player with MicroSD card
- Connects into effects pedals
Here’s a look at using the ES1 as a MIDI controller to create soundscapes:
Vindor ES1 Demos:
Pricing and Availability
The Vindor ES1 is available via Amazon and directly from the Vindor Music site for about US $250.
I would like only a MIDI Controller version, without the built-in synth voice.
That would be a lot less expensive and easier to produce.
+1
I backed the Kickstarter and am very pleased with the Vindor. The body is made of soild plastic which feels durable and unlikely to crack. The built in synth is a three oscillator affair offering the regular analogue synth tones and a low pass filter with resonance but sadly no envelope tethered to the cutoff. The synth would be very much improved by adding a band pass filter option and routing the breath to the cutoff. There is no amplitude envelope either, but this isn’t needed as the volume of the tone is entirely governed by breath pressure. The oscillators appear to have different responses to breath pressure, so you can obtain quite basic synth tones. You wouldn’t describe them as fat, but they are very expressive. Like Mik I’m really interested in it’s capabilities as a controller, but the integrated sounds make the ES1 a handy stand-alone instrument and fun to practice on. You can also load samples onto an SD card, I haven’t tried these but there are a few acoustic types free to use made by Vindor. You can ‘roll your own’ but there doesn’t appear to be anything fancy like velocity crossfading. Unfortunately midi is only over USB but it is class compliant and doesn’t require loading any drivers. Routing the midi to any synth is a revelation – synth lines become so much more fluid and expressive. It’s very good, but not perfect. The breath pressure can be mapped to aftertouch but you don’t get aftertouch and velocity (I haven’t examined the midi), but all I have been able to achieve is soft to loud, even so this is so much more than you get with a keyboard – in effect you shape the amplitude envelope with your breath. The instrument comes with a simple piece of software through which you can load up fingering configurations, but these aren’t documented and don’t work quite as I expected, so there is a small learning curve for me as I’m not familiar with sax fingering. All in all there is nothing comparable at this price, and overall I’d recommend it if you are looking for a cheap midi wind instrument.
Thanks BrokenGadget for taking one for the team and offering your review.
I agree with mik. Get rid of the built-in sax. Nobody wants that.
Or even better, get rid of the touch keys as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n0tPvNOFsU
Wireless midi please. Synth no thank you.