Was the Casio DH 100/200 the last EWI for Casio?

[Gandalfe]

Today I was, mostly unsuccessfully, looking to see what Casio has to offer in the way of EWI instruments and I came across this site

"We Fix, Repair, or Buy any Casio DH-100, DH-200 MIDI Horn or Accessories

If you are looking to purchase a quality used Casio DH-100 or DH-200 MIDI Digital Horn or have one that needs to be repaired- you have come to the right place! We are your Casio Digital Horn Headquarters! We also sell DH Series mouthpieces, neck straps, manuals, carrying bags, AC adaptors, and other accessories."

Their Wind Control forum has been abandoned too. But they have updated information at the Wind Controller FAQ.

 

[SOTSDO]

While the Casio DH 100 and 200 are good enough for fooling around (and are great in that they are completely self contained), anyone who is serious about music will probably be disappointed with the performance of either one.

I bought the first of the two that I owned back when they first came out, and used to carry it along on long trips when I would noodle around while resting from my turn at the wheel. With a pair of plug in earphones, you could improvise your heart away without hauling around an amp and a bunch of cables. The thing would run for hours on the batteries alone, thus making the power adaptor something that you leave at home.

Against that, it had the squeal problem (my first one developed it after about five years of moderate use; the second was bought used (for $5.00) and developed it after a couple of years); it costs quite a bit to get it fixed. It also was pretty uncomfortable to play, with a thumb rest designed to cause pain, even more so than a Conn sax from the good old days. The keywork, even when brand new, was sloppy and fragile. (I was able to replace a missing keywork spring with a shutter spring from a 3.5 inch "floppy disk".)

As a musical instrument, it's a decent toy. It does have MIDI out, and the 200 has a bit more output as far as the stuff a synth or a program like Finale can make use of. And, as you can see on their website, either version is hard to come by these days. While there were quite a few of them "back in the day", that number is certainly shrinking as days go by. I put the second one of these into the Salvation Army donation this summer, not even trying to go through the trouble to sell it to the fixer-uppers.

As a readily available retail item, it was great while it lasted. At the current price point, it would make more sense to purchase the readily available Akai than something that is crude (that thumb rest is a really painful piece of metal, all relatively sharp edges and with no real place to rest a finger), hard to find, hard to keep working (get the repair done if you ever buy one) and relatively flimsy in the bargain.

As for using the keyboard, I have trouble keeping my place (position and octave) on the keyboard - no such problems with that on a wind controller.