Ok, so I bought a late Christmas present for myself. An Aerophone AE-30. Finally received it this week.

So, first impressions. Good things first.
- I LOVE that they included a case. As a Akai EWI 4000 owner, it was a PAIN IN THE ASS to find a case for it. I did find a case made by Ritter-bags (soprano bag) that I love. But the AE-30 comes with a bag. Points scored.
- Mouthpiece. It actually sort is like a saxophone. A reed, and you can lip things up and down. Very nice.
- The sounds are great. The synth sounds really are top notch. Even the “trumpet” and other sampled/emulated sounds are very good.
- Playing response is great. Articulation, etc. Top notch.
- iOS app is nice. They don’t have a computer editor key as far as I can see. And no apparent way to share your patches or save them for backups or future reference. Not sure if it does a SysEx dump.
- Bluetooth Midi.
Now the things so far I do not like.
- It feels cheap. For a $1500 instrument, it feels cheap and plastic. Like, it feels like a toy. I know the Akai 4000 has plastic, but it feels WAY more solid and “PRO” than the AE-30. I’d fear taking the AE-30 out on a gig…..it might break.
- The keys are terrible. I complained on a couple of YouTube videos about the key noise. It is real. They keys are also rather….meh. I mean, they seem to be sluggish. I think the noise and the sluggishness are tied together. With some use perhaps it will go away? Or maybe some like silicone lube perhaps? Not sure. Not a fan at all of the keys.
- Speakers are lame. Still not sure why they have them on it. Perhaps if they got rid of it they could have slimed it down some.
Those are the impressions so far. A little disappointed by the build quality. More to come…..