New top of the line Aerophone the AE-30, to be the high end now to the AE-10.
They added ZEN-Core, Bluetooth MIDI, enhanced breath and bite control, a refined exterior touch like polished aluminum and fancier buttons improved voice selection controls on the back, and a higher price — $1500 USD. It’s out January 2021.
I’ve posted enough back in the Wind Controller thread. Time now this has its own thread.
That video… killer player, dated sounds. Roland and AKAI never seem to understand that their target audience extends beyond that bull****.
I’d really love to see a demo of interfacing with synths of the past 5 years, popular VSTs, etc… If I want woodwind sounds, I have actual woodwinds!
Exactly the way I feel too. The reason i use a wind controller is for all the other things it can do. There is still plenty of uses there to be explored.
I’d be excited to explore the sounds built into the Aerophone Pro. The SuperNATURAL synth sounds on the previous AE-10, the ones outside the standard stuff, are inspiring and useful. The new ZEN-Core sounds on the Pro should be good and hopefully they’ve added new ways to modulate them.
(Verging toward off-topic) In another thread i’ve been posting about the Aodyo Anyma Phi for creating new sounds from a wind controller.
as an ex saxophone player who gets a bit tired of the keyboard as an input device, this really is calling to me hard now…
the non-pro base model must have been quite a success for them to come out with this…
looking forward to the 808 state - pacific state covers done with this 
Dayyummm Roland is going after Akai HARD with this…
The “previous pro model” does sell well, they started with silvery white, then made a dark gray model, then a less expensive Go model, and then a beginner model the AE-01. If you play sax you can pick the higher end models up and after a short time just play.
I think there will be a few extra AE-10’s on the used market for a few months.
The ZEN-Core addition should be nice, but the previous SuperNATURAL sounds are quite good.
I will be getting the Aodyo Anyma Phi physical modeling synth for external control with my AE-10 early next year.
I wonder if there’s any use case for using these to control woodwind/brass sounds in orchestral libraries like spitfire?
I know the SWAM modeling engine is popular.
(Use case ?)
I mean using them to control the sample libraries somehow, maybe using organ pedals to choose articulations or something, or some combination of controls and breath/bite…
not sure if you’ve used orchestral libraries but they’re fairly complicated and usually by default use a low octave to change articulation when playing, so it’s easy on a big keyboard controller but it would be nice to play them on a wind controller.
I looked at some videos of SWAM, looks cool!
Good idea.
I’ve used MIDI expression pedals with the Aerophone. I have a bass pedal that i could add to that. I’ve not used orchestral patches with a wind synth, but that would be dramatic if done well.
The AE-10 has section voices, where they play a three voice chord. The SuperNATURAL engine inside is fully polyphonic. It sounds good but… Unfortunately the chord they play is only a root position major triad – there is no built-in understanding of key or scale. I’ve wanted to use external processing with the chord notes, but unfortunately there is no way to turn local off.
But external sound generation doesn’t have that problem.
The SUPERnatural sounds already respond really well to tonguing and breath techniques, expecially some trumpets and saxes (other woodwinds and brass not so much). If expressiveness is what you’re after, I don’t see a use case for bothering with external key-switched tone libraries. And if you really want the external sounds, not just the expressiveness, then the Aerophone would have no advantage over other quality wind controllers.
The big advantage for me with the Aerophone is the “sax” feel while playing. I’ve played a variety of other windcontrollers and none came anywhere near as close.
Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that, being a flutist, I have no love for the sax feel. I mean, it’s fine, but the Aerophone is much heavier than I’d like (so is the EWI-5000), and I don’t like having to use a neck strap. I end up playing sitting down, resting the thing on my lap. Aodyo’s Sylphyo, on the other hand, is lovely, and it does some cool things, but you don’t get the SUPERnatural trumpet and sax that I like.
Perhaps there should be a flute controller that must be held transversely. 
For me, weight is the biggest issue. I’m also not a big fan of the transverse flute because it’s not as comfortable as a symmetric woodwind. The Aerophone is fine, but I always have to play it resting on my lap. That works because, luckily, it’s long enough to reach to my mouth. The Sylphyo is the only one I’ve ever played that’s light enough so that it doesn’t require a neck strap to avoid too much weight on one thumb. But I’m mostly looking forward to the Photon, which could be a big advance in wind control.
Reading the specs more closely, Roland says they’ve improved the breath and bite response. I already find the breath response on the AE-10 to be fine, but I wouldn’t mind trying this new Pro. They also say there are new brass and sax patches, which would also be welcome because I only find the one trumpet and sax patch useful on the AE-10, and I use those pretty much exclusively. The Zen-core stuff is really promising, too, (I find the AE-10’s synth patches useless), plus this Pro adds more convenient controls on back. The weight has gone up by 30%, but unless they could get it down under one pound/450g, it’s still in the same weight class for me. The big upgrade for me, though, would be the addition of the MIDI in/out jack; the AE-10 has no MIDI. I’m tempted to try one of these, but I actually have two AE-10’s (one in each of my locations). I’d have to start up a third location to house the Pro.
You mean DIN MIDI. The addition of built-in Bluetooth MIDI (if it works well) with the Pro, would get rid of some cables, except for the audio connection. Being cableless is desirable for performance.
I’d be interested if the button controls, very good before, are now primo.