Learning to play any instrument is hard work, but Roland believes that it's taken some of the strain out of the process with the release of the Aerophone mini digital wind instrument. It may look like a toy, but it's a capable instrument where complicated fingerings and difficult breathing control have been eliminated, and six onboard sounds are offered out of the box, with more available through a companion app.
The Aerophone mini weighs a little over a pound (500 g) and runs on four AA-size batteries for up to 10 hours of continuous play (when using 1,900 mAh Ni-MH batteries). It rocks a built-in 1.5-W speaker for public performance, and features a headphone jack for quiet practice. And it can be played straight out of the box with a small selection of sounds including saxophone, flute and violin.
The layout of the seven main buttons and two octave keys is based on the recorder, which many will have tried during school years so will be familiar to some and easy to pick up for others. Students don't need to concentrate on getting breath control techniques nailed with the mini either, "just learn the simple fingering, blow into the mouthpiece, and away you go."
More than 50 additional tones can be had by pairing the instrument to a smartphone running the Aerophone mini Plus app for iOS and Android, which also serves up interactive lessons and tutorials that allow the student to slow down the tempo to start and pick up the pace as confidence builds.
The mini is not just for those starting out, pros can wirelessly connect it to popular DAW software over Bluetooth MIDI, adjust breath sensitivity settings and change fingering layouts, and blow with the band, as you can see in the video above.
The instrument is available now for US$299.99.
Product page: Aerophone mini
