Breath Controller
It is a peripheral that serves to give expressiveness to the sounds played with the keyboard. Technically it is a MIDI controller by air pressure, which transforms the force with which we blow in an MICI cc parameter that we send to the computer, which is usually configured to control the dynamics of the virtual instrument, the higher air pressure when blowing, the stronger the instrument will sound.
This allows musicians to control virtual wind instruments in the same way that real ones are played, that is, controlling the same parameters. With this device we can execute, for example, a flute or a sax, in a hyper realistic way, performing the articulations in the same way as in the real instruments. Also we can use it in other type of instruments, like for example the bandoneon, emulating the movement of the bellows by blowing.
This technology, although it has been around for some time, only a few years ago there are virtual instruments designed to take advantage of this type of peripherals.
Virtual instruments
It is called virtual instrument when we refer to those instruments played with a keyboard and the computer, ie by playing the keyboard we can play sounds of other instruments like a violin, a flute, etc.
This technology has its beginnings with the first synthesizers, several decades ago. Then samplers appeared, which are basically sounds recorded in studio and programmed to play when we press each key.
Today, pioneering companies such as Samplemodeling, are going further, creating virtual instruments that use a combination of sampler and synth technologies and adding innovative technologies, obtaining hyper-realistic results without losing the musician's ability to control articulations and dynamics of the instrument in real time.
In the following promotional video from Samplemodeling, Ramiro Gömez Massetti explains in detail and gives examples of these new technologies: