Breath sensor feels sluggish

[justforthemusic]

Hello,

I'm new to the Warbl and would like to ask for some help. I'm actually on my second attempt to get the Warbl to run properly now, after I gave up a year ago because of this problem.

The problem:

I want to use the Warbl to practice Tin Whistle silently and compared to the real thing the Warbl (or the breath sensor) feels very sluggish in reaction to my breath. I have absolutely no problem if I play with an continuous air stream and just use fingering to separate the notes (like with a bagpipe) - I guess this excludes any latency problems. But if I want to play anything faster than the absolutely slowest songs and seperate the notes with tonguing, it feels like the Warbl can't keep up. I have to "overenunciate" and play very slowly, or play with almost continuous air stream to make it work. To play staccato notes at all, I have to extremely exaggerate the pause of the air stream. The result sounds awful, almost exactly like a child in its first recorder lesson :-(

What I tried:

For days I've been playing around with the configuration tool:
- vented mouthpiece is on
- I adjusted pressure, threshold, multiplier, jump and drop,...
- I tried various settings of the pressure map, which brought some improvement, but I had to lower the input pressure range and output range a lot, which has other ill effects

System:

Windows 10
Problem tested with Respiro, the Configuration Tool Midi and Sforzando

I would very much appreciate any help and tips on how to configure the Warbl to improve the situation.

Thank You!

Bernhard

[admin]

Hi Bernhard, thanks for this feedback. The pressure sensor is definitely the most challenging part of making a wind controller, and I agree that it's not as responsive as I'd like it to be. The vented mouthpiece is better than the original tube (it wasn't possible to tongue notes at all with that one), but it's not perfect, and I'm still trying to think of ways to improve it. I believe it's a result of a combination of issues-- possibly air resistance inside the mouthpiece and the small volume of air in the mouthpiece being compressed and acting like a "spring" or buffer, the response time of the pressure sensor itself (which is listed as 1 mS but seems like it may be a little more than that), and the MIDI/Audio latency (which can be high on a PC but as you mentioned the tone hole sensors are probably a good benchmark for this).

I tend to play faster tunes with more of a legato style on the WARBL than I would on whistle. I also tend to let some air escape around the mouthpiece, which seems to help me control the air a little more. I don't think changing the pressure mapping will have much effect, as that is only used for the CC, velocity calculation, etc., and not for triggering the notes. However, as an experiment you could try an app that doesn't require any breath control at all and turn all that off. I don't think you'd notice an increase in speed, but it's possible. Those calculations do take a small amount of time. Another experiment I've been meaning to try is leaving the rubber stopper installed with the mouthpiece in, in order to take up any extra air space. the reason I don't usually advise this is that the stopper can get stuck inside the mouthpiece.

I'll continue to try to make improvements, and in the meantime I apologize if it's not what you expected. If the WARBL isn't going to meet your needs feel free to email me and we can work something out. I appreciate this feedback!

[justforthemusic]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you very much for the detailed answer! Now I understand it better and think can work with it - now that I know it's not just me not being able to configure it right. I've actually been using (bagpipe-style) midi-controllers to practice for close to 20 years now and I'm used to limitations compared to the real thing. And opposed to these controllers the Warbl can do a lot more :-)

Bernhard

[admin]

Thanks for understanding, Bernhard! I'll let you know if I make any interesting discoveries regarding the pressure sensor.

[justforthemusic]

Hi Andrew,

Update:

It was my fault! :-)

Thanks to your detailed answer I tried some things and found out I was too hesitant before, when pushing the mouthpiece onto the warbl. By not completely mounting the mouthpiece I created an extra large air volume, which I think caused the very sluggish reaction. Now I leave the rubber stopper in and push the mouthpiece to the stop and the reaction time of the pressure sensor improves significantly.

You can remember to ask other people who complain about the reaction time if they pushed the mouthpiece all the way down first :-)

Thanks for your support and taking the time to answer so thoroughly, which really helped me understand what is happening!

Bernhard

[admin]

Great, that's very interesting that it made a difference! I'll keep this in mind and I'll think about how to minimize the air space with future mouthpiece designs. In the meantime, it sounds like keeping the stopper installed may be a good idea.