Electronic wind instrument

Steiner originally brought to market a brass style fingering analogue wind synthesizer instrument known as the EVI in the 1970s.

Earlier EWIs require the external box unit, while the discontinued (as of 2019) EWI4000s and still currently available EWI5000 have built-in MIDI outputs.

[5] Wireless MIDI can be achieved on the Akai models with unofficial third party add on products at lower cost, albeit in a somewhat DIY fashion.

Today Akai only makes designs based around the EWI, having dropped the less commercially successful EVI.

The current Akai models EWI5000, and EWI SOLO contain built-in sample-based digital synthesizers and don't strictly require an external box.

The EWI has a silicone mouthpiece with sensors for air pressure (sending MIDI Breath Control by default) and bite pressure (which sends vibrato, more specifically a quick pitch up-down "blip" by default, but can also be routed to modulation or other CC controls of the player's preference).

Owing to the touch capacitive switches and breath and bite sensors the instrument is highly responsive, however, this sensitive nature of the touch capacitive switches does not immediately appeal to all players, some of which may prefer electronic wind instruments with mechanical buttons on which they can rest their fingers, more similar to a saxophone, though a short period of adjustment will allow wind players to easily adapt.