#234

its a different experience/feel …

one of the best thing about expressive controllers/synths like this, is that you have the expression under each finger - you’re not moving off to a secondary control (PW/MW/Pedal).

whats quite nice about having a non-continuous surface is its easy to locate the notes, and add expression via bend or timbre changes. (I love this on the Eigenharps)

but for sure, continuous is also nice, in a different ways - so you can slide in/out of notes or be completely unquantised. ( love my soundplane for this :slight_smile: )

it’s an area where one size does not fit all… it depends what you like to play, and what feels natural to you.

whats also nice about the Striso is having a built-in synth that is developed specifically for it surface - nice to have things you can take away from the computer.

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#235

From what I recall from a chat with the developer, you can set up the Striso to do a portamento in the same manner as on the continuum, by way of the weighted pressure average between two notes. So far more control than possible with a traditional keyboard.

Edited to add: in fact if you look at the kickstarter video this is shown.

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#236

If the device is polyphonic, I’m curious how it ‘knows’ which notes you want to slide between in that case? For example if you are holding two notes and want to slide to two others at the same time.

#237

I’m assuming that depends on the mode. The continuum is both monophonic (with portamento as mentioned) or polyphonic, depending on the patch. I suppose the Striso is similar?

#238

What I think everyone needs to remember is “MPE” is neither an instrument nor is it even a layout. It’s a protocol for expressivity over midi. As the hundreds / thousands of acoustic instruments created by men over the course of centuries have taught us, there are infinite gestural ways to allow for expressivity, and each of them tend to push us in different directions that are one more possibility to accomplish a lot of variations through sound.

Mpe should definitely not be equated to some sort of lapsteel guitar controller for synth sounds, it would just be a very narrow way to look at it.

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#239

Agree, although

someone should totally make this.

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#240

Totally! I’d go even further and say a pedal steel mpe controller. Per string midi tracking on guitars have come a long way.

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#241

Omg the inventor is INCREDIBLY goofy and charming. The buttons look like gumdrops.

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#242

Fair enough, but I have the need to slide. I wish the entrepreneurs luck.

#243

I feel like Sensel Morph with Buchla Thunder Overlay is a pretty decent compromise between these two modalities (continuous vs non-continuous): there are the clear demarcations of different notes which you can see as well as feel while playing. The scales for those notes can be whatever you choose with simple configuration, and you can also switch between different custom scales you configure with a quick button press. But you can also slide off of the demarcated notes if you feel like it. They’re more of a suggestion than locking you into particular non-continuous or quantized playing. You can see this demonstrated in this example of a polyphonic arpeggio patch being played.

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#244

Don’t be surprised if Roly Seaboard takes that from you for their next 3 million dollars marketting campain.

“Seaboard next : can you feel it? The Need to Slide. Redefining sound.” (it’s important to add that it’s redefining a broad physical and philosophical concept at the end otherwise it’s not really a new hardware)

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#245

Sadly, every part of that would surprise me, very much.

#246

Nice und skveeshy. :slight_smile: :upside_down_face:

This is another one of those instances where the actual tactile response of the keys will make or break the entire instrument. I worry a little bit about the rubber dome with XYZ movement; the Joué has those in its Bubbles module and others, and they can be a bit fiddly to get used to. If the tracking is reliable and reproducible and the keys are relatively sturdy and the tactile cues they mention work for telling you where X and Y are, then it looks quite appealing.

I like skveeshy, and right now the only real option out there for skveeshy is ROLI, which is a hard pass for me personally.

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#247

I’ve preordered an osmosis quite early. I had a continuumini and I still own a small seaboard although probably not for long. So far the continuum has felt as the best of the bunch and very expressive and fun. The mini was too small for my fingers but my biggest issue was with the Eagan matrix. I just didn’t click with that interface and especially in a high resolution screen it was brutal on my eyesight, getting older probably has something to do with it :slight_smile: I like the seaboard, very well made but again I don’t like the software engine that comes with it (meaning the sound engine) and in all honestly I only found it useful with kyma, where I have the flexibility to route, smooth values, without opening something like max and spending hours to configure the dsp side of it as well. Generally I find that using simpler sound sources or minimal processing chains with these controllers works best. It is not perfect though, and I wonder if I a more “in love” with the idea of the roli than the actual keyboard. Because of the edges of the black keys, it is not always easy to slide from the top of the keyboard…Anyway, I was searching for an fh-2 review, after watching synth diy guy’s excellent video using it the fh2 with the linnstrument, but i am perhaps leaning more to mdoudoroff’s point of view about mpe. I also have a small modular system to actually benefit from the polyphony along mpe’s exressiveness.

#248

When will the Osmose (it’s funny how every English speaking personne I know just never say the actual name which is in French ahah) be shipped? I must admit it made le very envious which I didn’t expect.

#249

Well for us Greeks it is more complicated than that being a Greek word :slight_smile: But more importantly being a universal term in physics/chemistry one might end up “quantizing” it in his dialect! Summer was I believe the initial plan, but with covid19, it is not clear.

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#250

Hi
I got a sensel morph last year but with so much other stuff going on i gave it to my nephew who loved the thing. Well they released an external that makes it really easy to use with Pure Data and i am going to see how it plays with NRNs next

Anyone else got one?
here’s a super alpha demo of a spectral morphing drum thing

and ye olde code shoppe

DEKEN REQUIREMENTS
SOUNDHACK
SENSEL
FREEVERB

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Friends of norns: gear, accessories, etc
#251

The Matrix interface is a brutal problem. Haken is clearly aware of it, and is working on a replacement, but things move slowly and deliberately at Haken. I gather they have to rebuild the entire UI system from scratch, so it’s a non-trivial project. I wonder whether they plan to mostly recreate what they had with rescalable GUI elements, or if they’re rethinking everything.

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#252

No lie. I don’t care how good it sounds, at my age I simply can’t deal with a UI like that any more. I am going to sell my Osmose before I ever play a note on it, simply because I can’t work with EaganMatrix in its current form… I found that out in my brief fling with the Mini…

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#253

Interesting that people don’t get along with the Eaganmatrix interface - it’s actually the feature of my Continuum I am enjoying the most at the moment. I think the only thing I constantly wish it featured was an “Undo/Redo” function when messing around in the formulae.

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