Sometimes called digital wind instruments or wind synthesizers, EWIs are the electronic representations of acoustic wind instruments like your saxophone, clarinet, horn, or trumpet.
But instead of carrying the sound characteristics of just one wind instrument, an EWI will have a bank of sampled sounds for all wind and other non-wind instruments.
Best of all, MIDI compatibility enables you to connect to an external sound bank with sounds that are more to your individual taste.
In effect, an EWI relates to acoustic wind instruments as do digital drum sets to acoustic drums and as digital keyboards do to acoustic pianos.