Vangoa EWI-100 Portable Mini Digital Electronic Wind Instrument Synthesizer Rechargeable with Removable Mouthpiece for Kids Adults Beginners

A fun product

Not happy with this. The octaves in some of the voices are not in tune. There doesn’t seem to be any way to complain about it.

There are several versions of this instrument available. I decided on the Vangoa because it was the one that seemed to be the original. I'd seen a few YouTube videos featuring it and they were very positive. It plays straight out of the box as it comes charged. I was immediately pleased with it. The sounds are good and it's very responsive. I then attached a small speaker to the headphone output ... and it sounded excellent. When played through my Sony XR-41, the sound is incredible. Like any instrument, you have to be accurate with your fingers and articulation. I play mainly jazz standards which require a lot of accidentals; they are easy to play. Swapping octaves is easy using the buttons on the back. (If I had any complaint it would be that it's sometimes easy to swap octaves when you don't want to. There is no "home button" to tell you when your thumb is is the middle octave position. That comes through experience.) One point is very important: the sounds are consistent throughout the 3 octaves. As an example, the clarinet setting sounds like a clarinet throughout the entire 3-octave range. (I also have a CarryOn electronic recorder which is similar and the sounds are very inconsistent.) It is incredibly well made and very feels good in your hands. The plastic mouldings are perfect and the plastic of very good quality. I highly recommend this as a fun instrument that sounds good, is well made and is straightforward to play. So why did I say that it's perfect for buskers? First off, the charge lasts for ages. Secondly, you can play it through a small battery amplifier. You could fit everything you need in a small backpack and be out wowing the crowds after 2 or 3 days' practice. If I were still busking, this would be my go-to instrument.

This is really a lot of fun to play. I play saxophone and the fingering is similar although some notes are fingered differently. It is not a replacement for a sax, but since I know the fingerings it is pretty easy to play and very portable. When playing through the built-in speaker, the flutes, clarinet, and trumpet sound the best. It is in concert pitch and can transpose so that you can play music for Bb,Eb or any other transposing instrument. The Bluetooth feature has a noticeable delay, the midi via USB is mostly OK although it can skip notes sometimes. This really shines when you just pick it up and play it. If you are not familiar with woodwind fingering it might take a bit of work to get the fingering. It does sense how hard you blow, so you can play with dynamics. It has a little over a three-octave range. The high, middle, and low octaves are controlled via the thumb, and you can go from C-C on each key with the upper C in one octave overlapping with low C in the next. At this price point, it is a great thing to have around and just pick up and play. The negative is sometimes you just don't want to put it down!

This midi instrument is very light, it has a weight of an acoustic recorder. It charges very fast and plays for 2-3 hours. It has 10 sound presets, my favourites are flute and a clarinet. Sounds better than acoustic recorder. But doesn’t work as a controller, as advertised. My DAW sees it sometimes but the sound latency is very big, it stops working sometime. Both wired and wireless connections has a big latency.

The good points: 1) it is well designed and seems solidly made. 2) lots of well-thought-out configuration possibilities (responsiveness to breath pressure, 10 'tones' or wind instrument sounds, 2 fingering options, reverb, transposition, volume) 3) the device transmits MIDI over a cable and I did not notice any latency or hiccups when playing into GarageBand on a Mac. It was nice to have breath control of dynamics. 4) the price seems quite low for such a sophisticated device. I was able to connect to my Mac via Bluetooth, but that simply caused the Mac to play sounds back through the EWI speaker. GarageBand only recognized the EWI as a MIDI instrument when I used the USB-C-to-USB-A cable (provided with the EWI). a USB-C-to-USB-C cable did not work for MIDI. Things that could be better: a) I like only about half of the built-in sounds b) it would really help to have a clip-on thumb rest for the right hand c) the fingering is based on simple wind instruments like pennywhistles. This is great for children, but it makes playing over the octave breaks tricky. I can't fault the makers; I think they made a reasonable compromise between ease of playing and speed of playing. Problem a) can be solved by playing through a synth. Problem b) can be solved by taping something onto the instrument. Problem c) can be solved by dedicated practicing (to some degree). I am generally extremely pleased with this instrument.

It's really good for the price. As someone who's dabbled with recorders for thirty years, I was really impressed with this for the price. It helps to customize the vibrato on any given instrument. The different voices are nice. And, best of all, I can practice at 11 at night or 3 in the morning with the headphones and not wake my wife. The only thing I've found is that the right hand 4th finger is a little awkward and C's and F's are a little hard (but for F, covering three left but just the first right sounds the same exact pitch - a little different from soprano recorder). Using the octave keys takes a little bit of practice too. But all in all I am VERY pleased with it and it is playable.