Carry-on Digital Wind Instrument 1 - Lightweight and Rechargeable with 10 Instrument Voices - Built-In Speaker and Bluetooth Connectivity for Performances and Practice Anywhere - White

This is an amazing instrument for the price. Not sure why folks are complaining. I have an Akai EWI (electronic woodwind instrument) that costs four times as much, is five times harder to use, will not work stand alone, and does not sound any better. In short the "carry on" is a fantastic product.If you know woodwind keying (which I do) you can pick it up and play in 5 minutes, otherwise you will need to learn the notes as you would a recorder. It is about as easy to learn.The "carry on" can be used alone with no other sound or midi device. Alone, it is just as loud as a typical recorder. It plays 3 octaves and it has maybe 7 distinct instrument sounds (e.g., a recorder, trumpet, clarinet, sax, and oboe). You can easily link it to any small external speaker (with a small phono plug). I use it with a Bose and a Sony small speakers designed for i-phones/ipads, and the sound fills up a large room. I also link it (with an adapted guitar cord) to a small guitar amp and I can add reverb and easily fill a small recital hall. While not a true professional instrument it comes pretty close. It is at least as good or better than a regular recorder or Irish whistle or a mid price EWI (costing $500).One of the best features is that the carry on has built in Bluetooth that you can link to "MIDI" based apps. Once I figured out where to look on the app, it took me 1 minute to link it to all of the music software on my IPAD (i.e., garage band, music studio, cubasis, sample tank). For example in Garage Band, you click on the "gear wheel" setting button (top right for the screen), then go to advanced, and after you turn on the instrument's bluetooth, it shows up below the garage band's "bluetooth midi device". Once you link it, it plays on garage band just as easily as the built in keyboard.After you link the carry on to any of your IPAD (or computer) apps you can make use of all of the built in sounds in your software. For example, using garage band on my Ipad (which I also linked to the above speakers or amp for concert level volume) I now have access to all the garage band sounds like guitar, piano, flute, and drum kit. With the music studio app (including the woodwind add on pack) I have access to over 125 different sounds including 25+ different woodwinds, which sound just about as good as any high end EWI instrument. Voila, with this $95 instrument (and your Ipad or iphone) and small speaker or guitar amp) you have a semi professional EWI instrument for fun and possibly even playing in public.This "EWI" offers a whole new way of playing that goes well beyond the built in IPAD key board or even an external keyboard. And this carry on is the best entry level access to the world of electronic MIDI music to all of us who are woodwind players.So this is now my favorite instrument. You will have almost no learning curve if you previously played, clarinet, flute, recorder or sax. And if you played none of these before, there is no easier way to get started in the new world of digital woodwinds as a complement to your other instruments.

Edit: To anyone having similar issues with velocity always being 100% no matter how hard you blow through this, the breath intensity is transmitted separately on channel 1, and it takes some extra configuration, but it does work.Original review below. I've changed my opinion on this device, somewhat. I still VERY much dislike that this does not work with Windows without workarounds, however I have found that with a CME Widi Bud Plus, this will actually become usable in my DAW (FL Studio 21) AND it actually pairs properly to the Widi Bud Plus. There is a problem, though, and that's that this always outputs 100% velocity, though that may be an issue with the midi over bluetooth device that I'm using, as when I connected this to FL Studio Mobile, the velocity came through properly, so that will not affect my rating.My rating is affected, however, by the fact that I had to buy a device that costs as much as this instrument just to use it with my computer. A standalone app from Blackstar that allowed this to pair and become available as a midi controller to my PC would resolve a majority of complaints I have about this item. And while I would dismiss the compatibility problem if it was just me not seeing something in the marketing materials, there are two features that are clearly stated on the pictures and product page: that this can do midi over USB (it can't) and that this can work with a PC (unless you have a device that automatically pairs with this instrument and then pretends to be a USB midi controller, like I do, no, it does not work with PC). The manual included with the item even lists just iOS and Apple products in the types of systems you can connect this too, in spite of what the product page says. This costs it a star.On to the good stuff:I love the feel of this. It's plastic, but the plastic is fairly rigid, and the surface feels good, like a decent entry level or middle priced electronic device. The buttons, the inputs, it all feels good. It's not heavy, but it doesn't feel flimsy either. It's very pleasurable to mess around with this intrument, and the ability to set the volume to 0 bypasses the requirement to plug in a fake 3.5mm audio jack to get this to stop outputting through the speaker, which is an issue I've seen in other similar products. Props for that.I've always wanted to get into learning a woodwind, and this item, so far at least, inspires a lot of motivation to look up some videos and practice some things. It's a very pleasant digital instrument, and much more reasonably priced than the offerings by Roland and Akai (though those are definitely superior).Original review:I bought this to use as a midi controller for my DAW. I use FL Studio, which does not yet support Midi over Bluetooth, but there are workarounds I can use.Long story short: this device does not support Windows. It can pair with iPads, it can pair with Macs, but it cannot pair with a Windows based PC. Pairing it results in it immediately disconnecting and behaving as though it is paired but disconnected permanently.No workaround will work if this thing can't handle connecting to Windows, and yes, I was using a bluetooth 5.0 dongle just like the manual said, and yes, I tried both with and without the Korg BLE Midi driver installed, and yes, I tried LoopMidi, and MidiBerry, and no, I couldn't get this thing to do anything but stay in a paired/disconnected state. I even tried multiple bluetooth dongles.That aside, this was pleasant to play, though it lacks legato. The tones are ok. They're not great. As a recorder, this is decent, but the midi controller portion, the part that makes this product go from $10 to $70+? Doesn't work with either my or a majority of computers in the market. So since this device is missing over 60% of its value in functionality, this gets one star.

"The Muzic Store Inc" seller is awesome/helpful! When my package went missing, the seller shipped me a replacement and was very responsive and helpful. I am so grateful. Sadly, the instrument (carry-on digital recorder) was not so great. The recorder makes a horrible buzzing/static noise which is constant while recorder is turned on. You can even hear it when the recorder is on lower volumes (which is largely why I wanted digital recorder in first place, to play on low volume). So, recorder bad, Seller good (Thank you Muzic Store Inc!)

Good: the notes are always on tune (slight off tune on the 2 highest notes when tested). Controls and menu easy to use and understand. Looks and feels good. Notes good to finger except I had a hard time with the position of the little finger (old hands). Ability to play quiet and silent with earphones nice.Not so good: the voices are not very natural, even the recorder.Not good at all: after about 3 days, the output sound developed a moderate steady hiss, severely lessening the musical experience. I used it exactly as instructed so no idea why this happened. I suspect the output stage is under engineered. I notice there are models that look identical; some are a little more expensive, some are 1/2 price from AliExpress. If I had known this was going to happen, I would have bought the cheap one and repaired it as needed.Received a full refund, which is why 3 stars.