For those of you with an interest in using Linnstrument to control hardware

[mrspiral]

I emailed them again yesterday. Relatedly, I was at an event with a Peak and quite liked the sound. I wish it has two filters but you can’t have everything. Poly aftertouch seems to work but of course no poly pitch bend and no way for me to test poly Y axis modulation.

Ya, there's no poly-Y-axis as far as I'm aware. At any rate, here's hoping they just do it. I mean, Novation is one of those players - if they add MPE to the Peak, the rest of the hardware industry will follow, I almost guarantee it.

Cheers!

We can hope. However, my own experience with Novation (from an attempt to get a feature added to the LaunchPad Pro firmware) is that they tend to be really, really careful with added features in firmware, because their stuff is so popular and well-entrenched that a screwup could hose a lot of folks.

So the more obscure the request, the less likely they are to devote time to it. That's why a whole raft of folks have to dive in and say, in reply to the video or directly, "The ROLI demonstration shows that the Peak COULD be the only non-boutique hardware synth that supports MPE right out of the box, and that has a lot of potential, so please consider it. And get a better player to demo it."

(Sorry, had to slip in that last bit.)

[mrspiral]

I completely agree with you 100%. I just didn't want the conversation to get off on a negative tangent and end up focused on the wrong point. Not that that ever happens on the Internet (wink).
Cheers!

NEGATIVE TANGENT?! WHY I OUGHTA

[t-IB]

Be nice if the new modal synth were to get mpe - they've done it in other things so fingers crossed...

[BobDog]

I had hope for the new HydraSynth module, MPE is not supported though. Seems a shame.

[TigerBalm]

Arg that hydrasynth looks so awesome. I wish it could do MPE. I would buy one in an instant.

[John the Savage]

^This! C'mon hardware industry, what's the hold up?

At any rate, I'll remain cautiously optimistic about the Hydrasynth till I actually put my hands on one; but specs-wise it looks like a sound-designer's dream, and the interface is brilliantly laid-out. Alas, if only it had MPE... (sigh).

Cheers!

[jsterne]

I feel the same way.

[mrspiral]

Tried it, played it, love it, buying it. MPE can always be added later to support an external controller, but I understand that it’s not terribly useful if the keyboard doesn’t understand vertical and horizontal movement.

[tiantong]

Tried it, played it, love it, buying it. MPE can always be added later to support an external controller, but I understand that it’s not terribly useful if the keyboard doesn’t understand vertical and horizontal movement.

It seems to me they are not interested in implementing MPE. This is what they write on their website:

The new ASM Polytouch® keybed allows not only the standard velocity and aftertouch found on other keybeds but we support fully polyphonic aftertouch.
​
In recent years companies have been trying to find ways to give the keyboard musician more ways to better express themselves. The problem is that their solution is almost never a keyboard, so you have to learn a new technique to play them.
​
The Polytouch™ keybed features a high quality, standard sized keys, so you can start playing it instantly.

It sounds to me like they have founded the "best" way to be expressive and do not approve those "no-keyboard" solutions like... well, the Linnstrument and that weird(?) keyboard called Roli.

[mrspiral]

Frankly, they make a very valid point. I don’t think they are doing it maliciously, and once the machine is established solidly, they may well return to tweaking the MIDI support for MPE. Even if they don’t, I don’t think it’s the end of the world. Support for polyphonic aftertouch means that the only missing form of MPE expression is vertical movement per note, and there are devices claiming “partial MPE support” that don’t even do that much.

[BobDog]

They are unfortunately missing horizontal movement as well as pitchbend is for all voices.

[TigerBalm]

I just learned that the Synthstron Deluge has a MIDI host port.
https://youtu.be/aBeeDwukpTs

In this post one user has found a cumbersome hack that can make MPE work.
http://forums.synthstrom.com/discussion ... rument-etc

In this post one user who sounds like a Synthstrom employee says that they might do MPE in the future!
https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/c ... are_tease/

This could be the holy grail!! (MPE + USB Host). I can’t believe I just bought a Digitone yesterday. I may return it and get the Deluge.

[John the Savage]

Too bad the Deluge doesn't have a proper USB A style host port—currently you need an adapter—but good on them for continuing to think in a forward direction at least.

Cheers!

[Tj Shredder]

I just came across this Euro rack interface.
http://polyend.com/poly2-midi-to-cv-converter/
Its not listed in the recommended sounds hardware category yet...

[Roger_Linn]

I've just added it to the Recommended Sounds page, Hardware MPE tab. It appears to be a good design, with 4-voice MPE and a graphic LCD for easier operation.