Expressive E Osmose...

[John the Savage]

I find this frustrating... If Haken Audio is willing to licence the EaganMatrix for use in third-party hardware, why not just put it in a little black box for all of us to use?

Seriously, just lop off the left-most six inches of this keyboard, and give it to me as a standalone module. Is that so much to ask? Argh!

Cheers!

https://www.expressivee.com/discover-os ... e=world_en

[Reckon104]

I completely agree. Had the same thought when I saw it.

[mrspiral]

Beat you both to it. When I got my ContinuuMini, the first thing I investigated was whether or not the EaganMatrix engine could be separated from the ribbon without hurting it. The answer was 'no', but for all its power, that damn board (which is equivalent to what the Osmose and Continuum have) is about the size of a credit card.

My (possibly fallacious) understanding of their reasoning is that they feel the control surfaces in all three cases send so much data so fast that an external connection couldn't handle the bandwidth. Perhaps not MIDI, but full USB2, surely?

[BobDog]

The Osmose has the 6x dsp, so three times more powerful than a stock continuum or continuumini.

[dr_loop]

I find this frustrating... If Haken Audio is willing to licence the EaganMatrix for use in third-party hardware, why not just put it in a little black box for all of us to use?

Seriously, just lop off the left-most six inches of this keyboard, and give it to me as a standalone module. Is that so much to ask? Argh!

...why so negative? The Osmose and the LinnStrument together look to me like a genuine Dream-Team!
Just put the LS (with some sort of a stand) on the top of the Osmose and you have arguably the most powerfull instrument of the world

(..if just someone could make a 'little black box' so it can be used without a computer, that is)

[Tj Shredder]

The Osmose has the 6x dsp, so three times more powerful than a stock continuum or continuumini.

Could you elaborate on that? I did not find any hint on the Osmose site...
Even 6x dsp would fit into a LinnStrument...; - )...

[BobDog]

As they were talking about 24 note polyphony I emailed them and asked and they confirmed it was the 6x DSP.

I'm thinking of getting it just for the DSP, it is easy to run out of steam on the 2x DSP in the continuumini!

[t-IB]

I must be getting old since I can't navigate thier website to work out exactly what it is I'm looking at! If there's 24 voices of easily controllable Eagan matrix bolted into that horrible looking keyboard I guess I'm interested. That said I agree with the sentiment that it should just be released as a standalone thingy.

[t-IB]

Watched a video... Might try to get on this one if I can...

[John the Savage]

I find this frustrating... If Haken Audio is willing to licence the EaganMatrix for use in third-party hardware, why not just put it in a little black box for all of us to use?

Seriously, just lop off the left-most six inches of this keyboard, and give it to me as a standalone module. Is that so much to ask? Argh!

...why so negative? The Osmose and the LinnStrument together look to me like a genuine Dream-Team!
Just put the LS (with some sort of a stand) on the top of the Osmose and you have arguably the most powerfull instrument of the world

(..if just someone could make a 'little black box' so it can be used without a computer, that is)

Short answer... Space.

My life is planes, trains, automobiles, and boats. Size and weight, never mind the ergonomics of my live rig, are paramount. And, as a guitar player primarily, the one thing I like most about the LinnStrument is that it gets me off the keys. Besides which, I see studio guys doing this all the time: i.e. purchasing an entire keyboard just for the synth engine inside... Frankly, I think that's ridiculous, if somewhat wasteful. Thankfully, however, given the logistics of my job, there's no way for me to rationalize gratuitous acquisitions like that.

At the end of the day, when the rubber meets the road, if it’s bigger than a Blofeld, fragile, lacking connectivity, or doesn’t have knobs, it’s pretty much useless to me.

Cheers!

[TigerBalm]

The Osmose looks cool! I am indeed super jealous that people who play the keyboard form factor will gain access to the EaganMatrix and us grid players won’t (unless we buy a continuumini and do a sort of clunky setup). I would really love to have a good hardware synth for Linnstrument so I can turn on an instrument and start jamming ... not fire up an elaborate computer system.

I e-mailed Haken a few days ago and asked if they would consider making an Eagan matrix box. I pointed out the interest on Internet forums and the market gap for a good MPE hardware synth. Here was their response:

“ Hi! Thanks for your email and your interest!

Unfortunately, we are plenty busy now, and are not ready to take on another controller. To “do this right” is a lot of work.”

That was from Lippold. I appreciated the quick and honest answer.

So that makes two reasons to not make an eaganMatrix box (data streaming rate and company resources). I think a third reason might be that they want to design the presets around the particular control surface.

[Roger_Linn]

Lippold’s response about not having time to “take on another controller” suggests that he may have misunderstood your question.

I’m curious. For those of you who highly value having the Eagan Matrix in a stand-alone box, do you have a Continuum or ContinuuMini and therefore your interest comes from extensive experience with the Eagan Matrix, or is your interest second hand, having read others’ praise or watched videos of it?

[BobDog]

For me I was first saw a Continuum many years ago when I went to a get-together in a Chateau in Belgium for a week organised by electro-music.com. From that point I wanted EigenMatrix but I didn't really want the expense of a Continuum!

So when the Continuumini was announced I was straight in with my preorder and got #19.

I do think when all the Osmose owners get their new piece of kit and start looking at EigenMatrix 99% of them won't bother to try to program patches and will end up using the stock presets with modifications via the macros (which can be done from the front panel) and/or use it as an MPE controller.

EigenMatrix is complex and not well documented apart from in a reference type of way. The multitude of tricks and tips needed to get things going needs to be documented, I have asked them about adding a section to the manual with tips.

A simple example is I wanted to tune one oscillator against another, say a 5th. I'm a pretty technical guy and could not work out from the documentation how to do this. You ended up having to use the ancillary part of the formula to use values defined by note number instead of frequency, so you end up with:

F=W+X->Ancillary note converter

Where F=Frequency to feed to oscillator, W=note offset (7 for a 5th), X = MPE X Position remapped to -1200 to 1200. Obvious really!

And yes everything is done with algorithms and we know how much musicians like maths.

EigenMatrix is good for people that like PD, Kyma, Max, Reaktor etc, everyone else is going to say: "What the hell is this."

[SteveElbows]

I was interested in it for years but out of my price range and I wanted it to be available via a less expensive option or two, and slightly less niche. But then when the ContinuuMini was announced the controller bit wasnt really what I was hoping for, so I decided to wait. Then I got really excited by the Osmose announcement, including the interest in the Osmose having the potential to increase interest in MPE & expressive stuff more in general, and make EaganMatrix available to another audience.

So then I decided to get a ContinuuMini in the meantime so I can learn EaganMatrix long before the Osmose is ready. But something has gone wrong with my order/the delivery company, and my ContinuuMini is currently lost! So I dont know how long I still have to wait to gain person experience of EaganMatrix.

[tiantong]

A simple example is I wanted to tune one oscillator against another, say a 5th. I'm a pretty technical guy and could not work out from the documentation how to do this. You ended up having to use the ancillary part of the formula to use values defined by note number instead of frequency, so you end up with:

F=W+X->Ancillary note converter

Where F=Frequency to feed to oscillator, W=note offset (7 for a 5th), X = MPE X Position remapped to -1200 to 1200. Obvious really!

And yes everything is done with algorithms and we know how much musicians like maths.

EigenMatrix is good for people that like PD, Kyma, Max, Reaktor etc, everyone else is going to say: "What the hell is this."

Thanks for this. As much as I love the sounds, that workflow is not for me.