EWIs, depending on the brand (Akai or Berglund; the latter referred to as NuRad), can use the
Boehm fingering system used by most woodwind instruments, or other fingerings, like that of the recorder or tin whistle. The instrument feels somewhat like a
soprano saxophone or clarinet, except that its keys are activated by touch rather than being depressed (i.e. the player's fingers don't rest on the keys). Nyle Steiner's EWI fingering was novel because it does not operate as an acoustic instrument. Instead of closing or opening a hole, each EWI key acts as a pitch modifier that can change note values by plus or minus a half step or whole step. As a result, fingerings that are similar to that of a Boehm instrument, but many other alternate fingers are possible on EWI that are not possible on acoustic instruments. This gave Steiner's invention flexibility yet remains familiar to woodwind players. Later generation EWIs can be switched to
flute,
oboe, and
saxophone fingering modes. The EWI Solo, EWI 5000, and EWI USB also have an electronic valve instrument (EVI) fingering mode that allows brass players to play the EWI. Like a straight soprano saxophone or clarinet, the EWI is straight with a slight inward bend a few inches below the mouthpiece, and it is held in front of the body with a neck strap. with an EWI 4000s 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). Because the EWI
keys do not move (instead, they sense when fingers are touching them by
body capacitance). 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. It also requires substantially less breath control than an acoustic instrument; breath sensitivity is one of the parameters that can be adjusted to the player's preference. Unlike acoustic wind instruments, the fingering is identical in every
octave. The current octave is determined by putting your left thumb between any two of the four to eight rollers (*depending on model), and also by rolling the thumb to the ends of the EWI USB roller track to achieve the fifth octave from just the four-octave rollers on that model. Touching a plate next to the rollers sends
portamento by default (this portamento strip is not on the EWI USB). EWIs also have pitch bend up and down plates all operated by the right thumb. The latest EWI known as Solo only has pitch bend down plate so the player has to scoop up from the bottom pitch down plate before blowing a note for an upwards pitch bend which will be of a more limited range compared to all the other twin bend plate EWI models; this sacrifice apparently made as the thumb hold at the same position also supports the greater weight of the instrument. The Solo however has seen the addition of a dedicated F# key to the EWI key sensors. A key not seen before on previous EWI models, which should be welcome for players using the saxophone fingering mode instead of traditional EWI. ==Notable players==