Help for Aerophone AE-10 MIDI setup

[Stevy444]

Hello there!
So I just bought an Aerophone (model Ae-10). Being saxophonist I wanted to discover software synths sounds and wind controllers.
Now I'm super new to this and only have basic knowledge of DAW and MIDI, but managed to connect it via MIDI on FL studio and get the instrument to work with The Trumpet VST (for NI Kontakt). What I have for now is just a flat sound out of it : the vibrato, reed pressure, air flow sensibility etc is not working. I think I am missing something on the configuration, it seems like fl studio recognize it like a classic midi keyboard. I read about midi mapping, but have no idea on how to do that ...

Does anyone have experience with wind controller setups ? Which DAW are you using ? How to set it up for lip and air flow response ?

Thanks a lot.

Steve

[JCJR]

Maybe a midi horn player can give more detailed advice. I give "generalities" dunno aerophone capabilities.

Some hardware synths and software synths are "physical modeling" for instrument classes like brass, woodwind, flute, guitar, etc. Typically those kind of synths "come alive" driven by a wind controller and sound dead and lifeless driven by an ordinary midi keyboard. Because midi keyboards typically transmit velocity, mod wheel, pitch wheel, key pressure messages, and the physical modeling synth expects to receive reed pressure, air flow, etc.

OTOH the majority of synths expect to receive velocity, mode wheel, pitch wheel, key pressure and are not programmed to do anything when they receive controller messages for reed pressure or air flow.

Dunno if your Aerophone has a hardware "brain" you can extensively program as with some earlier wind controllers, or if it is programmed via computer, or whatever.

But typically to wind-control play an "ordinary synth" without custom-programming lots of special patches responding to unusual controllers, wind controller "brain" units could be programmed for example to transmit pitch bend in response to reed pressure, Volume CC 07 or probably better Expression CC 11 in response to air flow. Some wind controllers had little thum pads or knuckle roller scroll wheels that could be programmed to send Modulation CC 01 or whatever seemed to make sense for the synth and patch you are controlling.

Here is a typical list of controller messages-- https://nickfever.com/Music/midi-cc-list

Most hardware synth manuals have "midi implementation charts" showing what they respond to. Maybe in a softsynth a well-done manual would have an equivalent list or maybe you would have to experiment and guess. I don't use softsynths.

Also, many synths can be programmed to respond to a wide variety of midi messages. For example CC 02 Breath Control might be a good assignment for air flow, and many synths can be programmed to respond to breath control, but not many "generic" patches are programmed to respond to breath control because typical keyboard players never use that controller number.

So to play an "ordinary synth" with wind controller, you could either:

_1_ Attempt to program custom patches which reasonably respond to whatever controller numbers that your wind controller likes to transmit
or _2_ Reconfigure your wind controller to send dirt-common messages which keyboards are likely to transmit (as described above).

If your aerophone can't be programmed to send a set of "conventional messages" in its hardware brain or software, then some softsynths and some daw hosts have the ability to "map controllers". For example, if your wind controller sends breath control cc 02 for wind pressure, in some hosts and synths you could map CC 02 to get automatically turned into CC 11 Expression Pedal, which does something in 99.9 percent of synth patches.

After you mapped (simple abstract example maybe not relevant to aerophone) CC 02 to CC 11, then when you blow soft or loud the synth patch will think it is a keyboard player pumping the Expression Pedal.