Odisei Travel Sax 2 and Travel Clarinet Quickstart Guide
The Odisei Travel Sax 2 and Travel Clarinet electronic instruments let you practice anywhere and everywhere with their compact size and light weight. Most importantly, they offer an authentic key layout that feels and responds like your acoustic saxophone or clarinet. Configure and customize everything with the Travel Instruments app for your iPhone or Android mobile device. Let’s get started.
- What Is an Odisei Travel Sax Electronic Wind Instrument?
- Getting Started
- Odisei Apps
- What Is MIDI? The Travel Sax 2 & Travel Clarinet as a MIDI Controller
- Travel Sax 2 & Travel Clarinet Care & Maintenance
What Is an Odisei Travel Sax Electronic Wind Instrument?
Electronic wind instruments have been on the market since the mid-1980s.
The Odisei Travel Sax 2 and Travel Clarinet are new-generation electronic instruments for practicing your saxophone or clarinet fingering technique when it’s inconvenient to play your acoustic instrument.
Using the companion app on your mobile device, you can emulate the sound of your saxophone or clarinet, other woodwind instruments, and synthesizer sounds.
Your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet features:
- A breath controller mouthpiece that, while not the same as a reed and mouthpiece on a conventional saxophone, senses your breath so you can start, sustain, and stop notes
- Keys that are laid out and operate in the same fashion as a saxophone or clarinet, respectively, with the capability to customize fingering to match the response of your main instrument, including altissimo fingerings
- An internal sound engine that creates synthesizer sounds and emulations of orchestral instruments that you can play expressively
- An internal speaker that puts out enough volume for you to hear what you play
- Headphone output for silent practice anywhere
- Audio auxiliary input over Bluetooth so you can play along with practice tracks
- An audio output so you can connect a cable and send sound to an amplifier, PA system, or audio interface for recording
- The ability to play external virtual instruments through MIDI by connecting your instrument to your computer via USB
- Battery power, with an internal rechargeable battery, so you can play without being connected to a power cable
Getting Started
Travel Sax 2
Download the Travel Sax 2 user manual from the Odisei Travel Sax 2 “Get started” page.
Here’s Odisei’s Get Started video, walking through unboxing, assembling the instrument, and playing your first notes.
Odisei Music: Get Started – Travel Sax
With the Travel Sax 2, you may choose to use the alto saxophone-sized mouthpiece with ligature and reed that comes with the instrument. You may also use one of the mouthpiece adapter barrels if you wish to attach your own soprano, tenor, or baritone saxophone mouthpiece. You may also opt for the one-piece plastic mouthpiece that’s sold separately in the accessory pack.
When attaching and removing any type of mouthpiece, Odisei recommends that you use standard saxophone cork grease or oil on the O-rings and plastic-to-plastic connections.
Before you can play your Travel Sax 2, you need to charge the internal battery. Connect the USB-C data cable provided to a 5V USB power adapter (not included), your computer, or a power bank.
Travel Clarinet
Download the Travel Clarinet user manual from the Odisei Travel Clarinet “Get started” page.
Here’s Odisei’s Get Started video for the Travel Clarinet.
Odisei Music: Get Started – Travel Clarinet
You may choose to use the standard clarinet mouthpiece with ligature and reed that comes with the instrument. You may also use the one-piece plastic mouthpiece sold separately in the accessory pack.
The Travel Clarinet standard mouthpiece has a cork ring. You need to apply clarinet cork grease (not included) or olive oil to the cork before attaching the mouthpiece.
Before you can play your Travel Clarinet, you need to charge the internal battery. Connect the USB-C data cable provided to a 5V USB power adapter (not included), your computer, or a power bank.
Embouchure & Choosing a Mouthpiece
Embouchure is the way you shape your lips and mouth around the mouthpiece and reed on your instrument.
The mouthpiece that comes with either the Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet consists of a mouthpiece, ligature, and reed like that of the acoustic counterpart. However, the mouthpiece on the electronic Odisei instrument doesn’t respond to your breath and embouchure in the same way as the mouthpiece on your acoustic instrument.
Odisei recommends that only advanced saxophone and clarinet players use the included mouthpiece with ligature and reed. They recommend that beginners of either instrument use no mouthpiece at all or attach the optional one-piece plastic mouthpiece sold separately.
Odisei founder Ramón Mañas explains in this video:
Odisei Music: What to expect from the Travel Clarinet, straight from its creator!
Odisei Apps
Travel Instruments App
Two views of the Odisei Travel Instruments app on iPad
To set up and configure your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet, you must use the Travel Instruments app for iPhone and Android, connected to your instrument via Bluetooth.
On your iPhone or iPad, download the Travel Instruments app from the Apple App Store.
On your Android phone or tablet, download the Travel Instruments app from the Google Play Store.
Here’s Odisei’s tutorial on working with the app to configure your instrument.
Odisei Music: Travel Instruments App – Onboarding tutorial
Odisei Play App
Odisei also provides an app with graded saxophone lessons called Odisei Play. As of this writing, it’s for iPad only.
On your iPad, download Odisei Play from the Apple App Store.
What Is MIDI? The Travel Sax 2 & Travel Clarinet as a MIDI Controller
The Travel Sax 2 and Travel Clarinet also function as MIDI controllers. In addition to making sounds within the instrument, you can use your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet to play external instruments.
Like other electronic musical instruments, such as keyboards, your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet uses the universal MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) protocol. With MIDI, you can go beyond the instrument sounds built into your instrument and access a much broader range of electronic sounds, both for emulating orchestral instruments and playing synthesizers.
The Travel Sax 2 and Travel Clarinet transmit MIDI to your Mac or Windows PC over the USB-C cable connection.
When you play a note on your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet, it transmits MIDI data that plays that note on a virtual instrument plug-in on your computer, running inside a recording app called a DAW (digital audio workstation).
Note that programs and sounds on synthesizers and virtual instrument plug-ins are usually set up to be played from a keyboard. To play these sounds expressively with your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet, you will have to modify the parameters of the sounds on the synthesizer or virtual instrument. Specifically, synthesizer programs need to be modified to use MIDI CC 2 for breath control.
The MIDI output from your Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet can also be used for recording. A DAW can record MIDI data separately from audio. After you record a track, you can edit your performance and assign the MIDI data to different virtual instruments. In some DAWs, your recorded MIDI data can be transcribed into standard music notation or output to music-notation software for creating charts and scores.
If you want to learn more about the world of MIDI, then here’s our Sweetwater inSync guide.
Travel Sax 2 & Travel Clarinet Care & Maintenance
Each time you finish playing, you need to clear out the condensation (water, moisture) inside the instrument.
Remove the mouthpiece. Place your mouth on the joint where the mouthpiece was and blow through the body to clear out the condensation. While you blow, the condensation will drip from the drainage hole at the bottom. Hold a cloth against the drainage hole and wipe it off.
Use the included microfiber cloth to carefully wipe down the keys.
Never apply water directly to the body of the Travel Sax 2 or Travel Clarinet.
Remove the reed from the mouthpiece (if used). Clean the mouthpiece with water and dry it with a soft cloth.
If you use the optional adapters or extensions, then clean them in the same way.
When you need help, Sweetwater has the answers!
Our knowledge base contains over 28,000 expertly written tech articles that will give you answers and help you get the most out of your gear. Our pro musicians and gear experts update content daily to keep you informed and on your way. Best of all, it’s totally FREE, and it’s just another reason that you get more at Sweetwater.com.
