from a newbie: traditional & digital musical instruments

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Greetings all!

New on Linux Musicians, I'm curious as to whether there are other (electric) tenor banjo players reading these pages. Or musoes, more generally (hobby or otherwise) geared towards traditional instruments: I'm thinking of ukulele, mandolin - either acoustic or electric - or even dulcimer (although I have yet to see an electric dulcimer).

I'd also like to hear as to whether anyone has yet succeeded in getting anything out of a (digital) AKAI EWI USB wind controller in Linux. Or is that solidly Windows?

I haven't got one yet, but it certainly is on my wish list!

tnob

[English Guy]

I play a little mandolin and mandola, though am really a guitarist. I have found that when you have the manual dexterity for a fretted instrument the skills are easily transferable. I also have an acoustic fretless bass guitar which is a lot of fun.

[ssj71]

I have a tenor banjo. I plunk around, but I'm not very good. As for EWI's I'm a brass player, so it has too many keys for me There are folks who report it working though

[j_e_f_f_g]

The EWI is class-compliant USBMIDI. When you plug it into your computer usb port, Linux will immediately make it available as a midi input. All linux software can use it (ie, the wind controller itself). Ditto with macOS and iOS.

The included ARIA (software synth) software is windows only. You may be able to run it under WINE, but probably not. So you'll instead use the controller with linux softsynths like LinuxSampler, AmSynth, ZynAddSubFX, etc, or an external midi sound module attached to your computer like a roland integra 7.

[autostatic]

(although I have yet to see an electric dulcimer).

An acquaintance of mine builds them: http://www.hypercustom.com/

[English Guy]

Simon Nicol (better known for being in Fairport Convention) played Electric Dulcimer on the Albion Country Band album 'Battle of the Field'. way back in the 1970's