Roland AE-20W Aerophone Digital Wind Instrument (Pearl White)

General

Developed for the more experimental wind musician, the Roland AE-20 Aerophone packs an orchestra's worth of instruments in one sleek housing. With a design that just dropped from the future, this sonic spaceship is home to an array of flutes, saxophones, oboes, trumpets and instruments you might never have known existed. Deeper than that, the Aerophone features a complete synth-engine capable of conjuring way more than just wind instruments. Another excellent perk that comes with opting for a fully electronic alternative to an acoustic instrument is that it comes fitted with a headphone output, so you can run scales on your trumpet, saxophone or oboe deep into the night without bothering your housemates and neighbours. And while the button layout matches the valve layout of a saxophone, the fingering can be tweaked to match your preferred instrument.

The Roland AE-20 Aerophone: Totally ZEN

The AE-20 is also home to the ZEN-Core engine: the mind-bogglingly extensive engine that comes loaded into the Roland Fantom and Jupiter-X synthesisers. This has then been teamed up with the SuperNATURAL engine to breathtaking effect. While this level of sound-generation is already impressive in the world of synthesizers, when you add on the extra expressive dimension of air-pressure and the fact that you can actually bite the new mouthpiece to influence the response, you might as well be looking at an entirely fresh instrument.

Apps

The Roland Aerophone is fully supported by an array of compatible apps, from a teaching app through to the free Aerophone Pro Editor which allows users to take a deep dive into the parameters of every sound so they can be customised at will. The performance settings can also be tweaked and sounds can be layered and then there's the Roland Cloud: an entire platform set up to offer new sounds that can be downloaded and added to the internal library of your Aerophone. Basically, this instrument is so progressive and open for experimentation that it might as well be a full sound-designer's tool bag.

• Please note: Check out the Roland OP-AE05MPH if you're looking for a replacement mouthpiece.