Yes, it's always good to share knowledge!

Don't set your expectations too high! This is not an acoustic instrument, and the academic and technical understanding of what makes the sound of an instrument so unique to its performer is nowhere near complete. So it won't be at the level of a sax, but we feel the Sylphyo still has something special in this regard and we're working towards making our internal sounds even more unique and versatile. Certainly, we're already amazed when we see other artists appropriate some of our sounds and make them sound veeery different just because they are different persons. It also depends on the sounds, some are more "fixed" and others are designed to be more "versatile". Personally, I find that it's very easy with the Sylphyo to incorporate the different ways to articulate and modulate sound into my playing (vibratos, tonguing techniques, bends, etc.). And if you pair the many expressive controls of the Sylphyo with an awesome physical modelling synth like Respiro, well, that's a killer match!

As for the fingerings, if you come from the saxophone, you'll find that there'll be a period of learning to compensate for the missing keys. It's something we want to address (e.g., making a B flat by half-fingering the B key or by fingering the B key and half-fingering the A key as you suggested; or having alternatives for the palm keys) but we're not there yet (we're very open to discuss the fingerings with users). If you have experience with other wind instruments you might want to try the different adaptations we made for their fingerings, and select the one you're the most familiar with.

We don't have many Linux users, and we don't officially support Linux as a platform (it might be a problem for applying updates, though they work great in a Windows VM), but the Sylphyo and Link are USB-MIDI class compliant so everything will work great with your existing stuff. Please feel free to report on your experiences with Linux!

Pour annuler le glide, on peut toucher le bord bas du slider avec le pouce, remonter le pouce un petit peu et le redescendre jusqu'à dépasser le bord du slider. L'important est de commencer le mouvement depuis le bord bas du slider, pas depuis un autre endroit.

What did you hope to use the mouthpiece for? The Sylphyo has evolved a lot in two years. Have you tried shake vibrato and doing pitch-bends using the slider?

As our mouthpiece project is still in the research phase, it is best not to expect it in the near future, sorry. For now our development focus in on an editor for the internal sounds.

We have had another report of this issue but haven't had enough returns to determine if there are particular settings that aggravate or mitigate the issue. Do you have an XpressO? If so, a trace from a MIDI monitor utility demonstrating the double notes would be very helpful.

Beaucoup de gens utilisent les 2 octaves supplémentaires, ce qui est déjà plus confortable.
Si vous souhaitez essayer une version bêta qui permet d'avoir le système qui était disponible avant (9 octaves en tout, au moins 5 si vous n'utilisez que les trois touches d'octave), n'hésitez pas à nous envoyer un petit mail à support@aodyo.com !

C'est une fonction qui n'est plus officiellement présente depuis la version 1.0.0 ! Nous l'avions retirée car elle était difficile à utiliser de manière fiable, mais nous pourrions envisager de la remettre en "version bêta" par exemple…

The latency thing is something we cannot reproduce.
Could you please confirm that it is still there even after a factory reset?

If it's still there, the usual thing to do for diagnostics is to use MIDI monitor software and try to see if there is a significant delay between an action on the controller and new data being displayed on the screen. It would be very helpful if you could test your Sylphyo+Link using a MIDI monitor (see this article for help), ideally showing us a video of the delay.

Did you try the official 1.3.1 version from our website as well? There are some differences compared to 1.3.1b2.

From what I understand you'd like to know more about the Sylphyo's unique features and you found our communication lacking in this regard. I hope this post will help you understand the product better, and we will try to communicate better on our product in the future.

First of all, the Sylphyo and the EWI take quite different stances at what makes a good electronic wind instrument. This should not be surprising, as in the acoustic world there are many very different and equally successful designs for a wind instrument too.
What sets the Sylphyo apart from the EWI is that it is designed to fit a wider range of playing styles, notably those of non-reed woodwinds players (more on that later), and to provide greater and more intimate control over electronic sounds.

Several features of the instrument contribute to its design intent. First, as air flows all the way through the instrument, the sensation while playing is much more "acoustic-like", and it allows a greater range of breath control techniques, while retaining the possibility to feel "closed" like an EWI. Then, there are techniques like "key-bend" and "shake vibrato" that are borrowed from some types of flutes. And as an extension of that, the Sylphyo also reacts to gestures on its back surface (the slider) and in the air (elevation, roll, compass control) thanks to its lighter weight. With time and practice it allows you to get much more timbral variations out of your sounds. This is what the Sylphyo aims at: intimate, physical, instrument-like control of your electronic sounds. As they're relatively novel, such features might look like "gadget gimmicks" if you don't think about the instrument as a whole, but videos like the Chat with Pedro series will show you how far you can go with it in a professional setting (of course we'd like to have more videos like this, but the product is still very young and not widespread).

As for the latency issue that popped up recently, this is very likely an individual issue having to do with the specific setup within which the Sylphyo is used. The Sylphyo itself is demonstrably one of the lowest latency controllers out there, even with the wireless option.

The Sylphyo was a wireless MIDI wind controller until around September 2018, where we made two important changes:

• We added an internal sound engine inside the Sylphyo itself.
• We changed the wireless receiver to make it a wireless audio/MIDI receiver.

So what do the internal sounds sound like? There's a pretty long overview of the seven first sounds, and the user guide has an up-to-date description of each sound, along with an accompanying video.
As you have seen, the internal sounds do not aim for realistic reproduction of acoustic sounds. This is for several reasons. First, it is extremely difficult to reproduce the sonic behavior of an acoustic instrument, and it's very computationally intensive, so much so that it'd be really costly to integrate into a mobile battery-powered instrument (and the battery wouldn't last long). We're planning to provide sounds with much acoustically-inspired behavior, but we're not aiming at reproducing some specific acoustic instrument. And the more important reason why we don't do that is that we feel the real power of the Sylphyo lies on the way you can control electronic sounds with it, so it'd be a waste to sacrifice all that control for realism. Acoustic-style rich behavior, that's a better thing to aim at in our opinion.
We're planning to gradually add more sounds and we're currently working on an editor that allows anyone to make presets with the elements of the sound engine we've developed.

Maybe you'll come to the conclusion that there's nothing appealing to you with the Sylphyo. No big deal. People have different needs and it would be a bad idea to try to fulfill them all with a single product! If you just want a more recent version of your EWI and nothing else, then it's likely the Sylphyo will not suit you and that's OK! But if you're looking for something different, the Sylphyo is definitely an instrument to consider.

You'll find some technical details in the user guide, but the best place to get answers is to ask us or our community, either here, in the Sylphyo Exchange Facebook group, or privately (contact@aodyo.com).