Download driver C-Media CMI8738 PCI Audio Device Drivers version 8.17.40 for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 32-bit (x86), 64-bit (x64). File Name cmedia8738winallmxlxcustom.zip - manual install (26 mb) all versions. How 2 beef the pupper up.
Last UPDATE: Oct 2020.
I would like to write this short guide, going straight to the point, on how to configure the EWI the first time using Windows and Ableton Live.
As for Linux: I tested it on Ubuntu 18.04 and it works as soon as connected, you need to install FluidSynth, QSynth and JACK. For this you can find similar guides on the internet about MIDI keyboards, follow those. To make the breath control work just set the settings on a Windows or MAC PC on the Akai EWI USB proprietary software or on the Cognitone free software (which is better).
Guide for Windows:
1) First of all, if you don’t have a dedicated sound card but you want to use the internal one of your PC, install the ASIO4ALL drivers. With these, if I put a buffer size of 88 samples I get about 7 ms of latency. So it’s great, I don’t feel any lag, even without an external sound card. The problem with these drivers is that they mute everything else in the system. To get around this (and to use for example your program to play and YouTube in the background) you can use FlexiASIO drivers, but you have to play a little bit with the configuration files… and the latency increases (see picture).
The best, anyway, is to have a dedicated external audio interface (even a cheap one) with their own ASIO drivers.
UPDATE: I am having some problems with ASIO4ALL drivers on my Realtek HD Audio (Windows 10 build 19041), with an intermitted noisy crackling problem.
Link ASIO4ALL: http://www.asio4all.org/
Link FlexiASIO: https://github.com/dechamps/FlexASIO
2) Install the original AKAI EWI USB software that you can find on the manufacturer’s website here https://www.akaipro.com/ewi-usb.
I personally don’t like it because it lags even with ASIO drivers. But I suggest you try it anyway.
3) Install the free Cognitone software to set up the EWI. You just need to connect the EWI via usb, open this software and set it up. An example setting can be seen in the picture.
Link: https://www.cognitone.com/downloads/item.stml?p=10773
There I assigned the CC2 midi control to the Volume, so then it will be immediate use in some DAWs (like in Cubase, which recognizes it automatically). In other DAWs like Ableton, you need to set the controllers “by hand”, but it will still recognize the CC7 (Volume) in the blink of an eye.
4a) In Ableton preferences set your ASIO drivers (e.g. ASIO4ALL or FlexiASIO).
4b) First, from Preferences, set your MIDI EWI as “Remote” (turn on the button). To assign the breath control to your EWI on Ableton just click on “MIDI” in the top right corner, then press the control you want to assign to the breathe (in this case the volume of the instrument rack) and then blow once. The program will automatically recognize everything. From there you can also assign other controls for example to the pitch bend, which as you can see in the picture (Cognitone settings) I associated to “general controller”, which then in the DAW I reassigned in that case to a sort of “growl” (a Saturator filter).
UPDATE: I found this great Ableton setup rack for EWI, provided by SHEMS_Music that you can find HERE.
Note: in the image I also show the pitch shift control that I inserted at the beginning of the rack. I need this because coming from the tenor sax I sometimes need to play 2 semitones below. That way I press a button and start it easily.
Final result:
I hope it can be useful to someone. If you have any problems, criticism or suggestions, feel free to comment here!
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It’s highly important to have the drivers for an audio or network device as without them they might not work correctly or they might not work at all. And some audio problems happen when you did not update your C-Media driver. Here we will discuss the two most common way to update C-Media drivers.
Methods:
Method 1: Update C-Media Drivers With Device Manager
The first way is to update it by Microsoft Windows, which is an easy way and needn’t download third party software.
1. Right click the Start Menu and choose Device Manager in the list.
2. Locate the C-Media device in the pane. Usually you can find it when you expand Sound, video, and game controllers.
3. Right click it and select Update Driver.
4. In the window, there will be two options as the picture.Choose the first one Search automatically for updated driver software, Windows will search your computer and the internet for the latest driver software for your device. You just need to follow its instructions to update the driver.
And it will remind you if your computer has already installed the latest driver software.
These are steps of the first method.
Method 2: Update C-Media Drivers Automatically
You need to download a professional driver download utility tool which can help you download and update device drivers, such as Driver Booster. This method can save time for you.
Driver Booster, an automatically drivers download and update tool, can help users to get the latest graphic driver, audio driver, USB driver, mouse driver etc with one click. And as the best driver scanner, it can detected the most outdated and missing drivers for your computer.
Besides the driver function, it supports to download and update the game components such as Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, Microsoft XNA Framework Redistributable, OpenAL, etc.
1. Download and install Driver Booster step by step, after that, run it on your computer.
2. Click Scan. After it finishing scanning, it will tell you how many devices need updated drivers.
3. Then there will be a list, and you can find C-Media Device among them. Next you just need to find the C-media device and click Update to update the driver. Or if you’d like to update them all, choose Update Now.
Your C-Media Driver can be updated quickly after finishing these steps.
Method 3: Install Compatible C-Media Drivers
The next method is a little similar to the first one. When there is no C-Media Audio driver but your device is C-Media PCI Audio device, you can install the compatible device driver such as High definition audio driver or Realtek HD audio driver.
1. Right click the Start Menu and go Device Manager>Sound, Video and game controllers > C-Media Device > Update Driver.
2. Choose Browse my computer for driver software.
3. Then click Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.
4. Check Show compatible hardware. Then it will show compatible device in the box and you can choose the version you’d like to update to. Click Next.
5. Choose Yes when the warning window appears for it is normal.
After this process, you have updated your C-Media driver.
All these above are the three ways to update C-Media Drivers. And these ways can be applied to not only C-Media Drivers but other device drivers. You can choose one way you prefer.
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