Yamaha WX5 - User Manual

DynaSample - XPression

Wind Controller Setup

Here are some suggestions about setting up your wind controller for optimal performance with

XPression

:

General Considerations

Breath

:

The most important thing about playing a wind controller is to translate your breath pressure to MIDI
data as accurately as possible so it can be used best by the sound generator. Make sure you get the
optimal setup concerning the available response curves, offsets and so on of your wind controller
before messing with

XPression

’s settings.

Generally breath pressure needs to be output only by CC2 (breath control) and

no other CC

in order

to work best with

XPression

. This is valid for all wind controllers although other CCs like CC7 (main

volume) CC11 (expression) or aftertouch could also be setup to work.

In the [

Global

] menu you can change the response curve of the dynamic controller. A value of “0”

makes it linear. Higher values make it more exponential. A value of 25 – 50 might make the
instrument feel “more dynamic”. Experiment for yourself what feels best for you!

Pitchbend

: Pitchbend can be used both with regular pitchbend and CC3 for pitchbend up and CC4 for pitchbend

down. You can redirect bend up and down (internal CC 135 and CC136) individually to different
functions per preset. E.g. you could use “pitchbend up” as “sustain” (CC64) while still being able to
use “pitchbend down” normally.

XPression

also has a special “string pitchbend mode”. If it is activated it will bend the current note

until the next note is played and deactivate pitchbend until you return to the center position. This
allows an emulation of position changes on solo string instruments.

“Auto Portamento” / “LFO vibrato off” with pitchbend out of center:

XPression

uses automatic portamento when the pitchbend value is not centered. This allows you to

quickly do smooth note transitions or brass falls (

and so on…)

with only one controller (pitchbend) to

be moved. However this can cause problems with the WX5 or Synthophone when using “tight lip”
mode since pitchbend cannot be centered 100% accurately. It also interferes with the lip vibrato of the
EWI4000s which cannot be set to CC1 with the current software.

In this case you need to edit the “pitchbend center width” in the [

Global

] settings and set it to a value

of approximately 16-32 for your MIDI input. A setting of 64 turns this function off completely.

If the EWI is set up for pitchbend vibrato this option needs to be set to “64”.

Vibrato

:

Vibrato can be done in many ways on

XPression

.

- Typical keyboard LFO modulation - as done with the modwheel on a synth - is possible with CC1.

- Pitchbend vibrato like the WX5 or Synthophone with “tight lip” can also be used. Pitchbend is also

being sent with the standard settings from the bite sensor of the EWI or the vibrato lever of the
MDT. This technique is used by many sax players.

-

XPression

’s own Bite Vibrato which uses modulation or any other MIDI CC as a source.

- Breath Vibrato (aka diaphragm or throat vibrato) - the preferred method of many wind players.

(It’s

also my personal favorite!)

This method is already setup by default but can be turned off completely if not desired.

With this technique pitch changes only happen when vibrato is being recognized and not while

doing a crescendo or sforzando. You should note that volume changes are compensated for
automatically so you don’t get the undesired “tremolo” sound that is produced with other sound
generators. The response of this vibrato can be edited individually for each preset using [

Edit

]

mode.

The preferred method for doing vibrato with

XPression

is either “Breath Vibrato” or the internal “Bite

Vibrato”. Here is why:

XPression

is set up to have different pitchbend ranges for bending up and down. Usually there is a

smaller range for bending up than for bending down – just as it is with real wind instruments.

If you use pitchbend as the source of your vibrato it will have more effect on the lower side thus

making the pitch center sound flat.