Vangoa EWI-100 Portable Mini Digital Electronic Wind Instrument Synthesizer Rechargeable with Removable Mouthpiece for Kids Adults Beginners

I’m a middle aged woman who dabbles with tin whistle and recorder (mainly soprano). One problem with playing those instruments is that they are loud and shrill. Not suitable for living in proximity with other humans.I have been wanting something like this for a while. I bought a similar item a while back and didn’t care for it. This, however, has been fun to play. I can use headphones for silent practice, but honestly, since the volume can be adjusted, I don’t really need to use the headphones. I’m pretty sure my neighbors can’t hear me.Just like with anything, there is a learning curve. I find the fingerings are close enough to recorder/whistle that it’s not a problem. But it took a bit to figure out the best way to use the octave buttons. I found you don’t have to put your finger directly on the buttons; you simply need to make contact with them, so I just slide my thumb until it hits the edge of the button, and I’m good to go.I have played this thing nearly every day since I got it. I like the fact that unlike a whistle and a recorder, you can get dynamics by blowing harder and softer. I’ve had to retrain myself not to blow harder for the second octave, so I can keep the volume steady.I’m not 100% sure if this instrument can be used as a midi controller. I haven’t tried that, since I don’t know what kind of app to put on my phone/ipad. The onboard sounds are fine with me for now. I don’t mind the synth-y sound. Heck, I remember listening to Switched on Bach when I was a kid.I just absolutely love this thing! I have recorder and whistle books that I can play from, but there’s lots of free sheet music online, too. And 8notes.com is a great resource. For a mere 20 bucks A YEAR, you have access to all the stuff on the site, which includes accompaniment for a lot of their songs. Super fun!And frankly, I love the fact that this is ALWAYS in tune. I don’t have to worry about my cheap whistles being out of tune or of blowing too hard or too soft on my recorder and not being in tune. I can just worry about fingering and phrasing. Loving this!

This is really a lot of fun to play. I play saxophone and the fingering is similar although some notes are fingered differently. It is not a replacement for a sax, but since I know the fingerings it is pretty easy to play and very portable.When playing through the built-in speaker, the flutes, clarinet, and trumpet sound the best. It is in concert pitch and can transpose so that you can play music for Bb,Eb or any other transposing instrument. The Bluetooth feature has a noticeable delay, the midi via USB is mostly OK although it can skip notes sometimes.This really shines when you just pick it up and play it. If you are not familiar with woodwind fingering it might take a bit of work to get the fingering. It does sense how hard you blow, so you can play with dynamics.It has a little over a three-octave range. The high, middle, and low octaves are controlled via the thumb, and you can go from C-C on each key with the upper C in one octave overlapping with low C in the next.At this price point, it is a great thing to have around and just pick up and play. The negative is sometimes you just don't want to put it down!

The good points:1) it is well designed and seems solidly made.2) lots of well-thought-out configuration possibilities (responsiveness to breath pressure, 10 'tones' or wind instrument sounds, 2 fingering options, reverb, transposition, volume)3) the device transmits MIDI over a cable and I did not notice any latency or hiccups when playing into GarageBand on a Mac. It was nice to have breath control of dynamics.4) the price seems quite low for such a sophisticated device.I was able to connect to my Mac via Bluetooth, but that simply caused the Mac to play sounds back through the EWI speaker. GarageBand only recognized the EWI as a MIDI instrument when I used the USB-C-to-USB-A cable (provided with the EWI). a USB-C-to-USB-C cable did not work for MIDI.Things that could be better:a) I like only about half of the built-in soundsb) it would really help to have a clip-on thumb rest for the right handc) the fingering is based on simple wind instruments like pennywhistles. This is great for children, but it makes playing over the octave breaks tricky. I can't fault the makers; I think they made a reasonable compromise between ease of playing and speed of playing.Problem a) can be solved by playing through a synth.Problem b) can be solved by taping something onto the instrument.Problem c) can be solved by dedicated practicing (to some degree).I am generally extremely pleased with this instrument.

Fortunately, I was within the return window. I opted to get it again, because otherwise I liked it. The breath response is good, though it does take skill to fade notes smoothly. Connecting via cable to Garageband on my iPad is a bit tricky and often requires plugging and unplugging to get it to respond. Wind and voice sound the best. So, for the price I was satisfied until it stopped working. Giving it a three star review for now. If the new one has the same problem, I'll shift that to one star.

For the price this is excellent, If your expectations are reasonable.The sounds are good,The built in speaker is good,The battery lasts a decent time.Bluetooth connection to my stereo speakers worked.Midi connection to an external sound module worked.Of course it's not comparable to a pro EWI from Yamaha, Roland, Akai, etc. but it is a fraction of the price.It's still way better than a toy and I really enjoy it - I was surprised actually.I wouldn't call it rugged - you probably don't want to drop it - but again, consider the price and it's reasonable.