#202

Some useful info about the Osmose from one of the programmers:

You can play it as a traditional keybed, but that’s not what it’s made for (also this will allow to use your non MPE VST and Synth). What really makes the feeling different is that you can start a sound at the very first touch of a key (event very light), then you have the classical depression of a piano key (mapped to Z) and then you fill a “step” (need for a bit more of pressure) and this second area is mapped to Y… and X is the done by shaking the key left/right (and remains accurate: also thanks to the shape of the key, you need to press a little bit before being able to do this left/right shaking, meaning that you can’t attack out of tune… but that’s mechanical, not software).

And yes from the screen and knobs, you can control the barrels… and much more (more or less all the parameters youhave in my IOS app).
It is a 3DSP unit, meanig that you can layer, create processing chain, split …

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#203

Having in mind your point about the Seaboard, another reason for hammer action is the haptic feedback. It’s super illuminating to think about the options that open up for extending traditional keyboard design with musically useful haptic feedback once we kick the wheels of the piano paradigm. That seems to be the route Osmose is following.

I’m with you on the Seaboard’s unusual feel. It’s an excellent source of haptic feedback.

For me, this discussion and the Osmose announcement bring out the importance of the way haptic feedback and gesture integrate in MPE controller design: between how the controller feels, physical gesture, and musical gesture (minimally at the abstract level of midi/osc/cv message).

With that in mind, one of the striking things about Osmose is that it seems to be exploring the opposite direction of the Seaboard’s feel on how to integrate MPE controller haptics and gesture relative to the normal feel of a keyboard/piano. E.g. the feel of skin making contact with a traditional key is normally there, but left for dead. Likewise for the feel of a mechanical key’s travel beyond the note’s attack. Aftertouch normally extends that by adding some range of haptics and controller gesture at the bottom of the key’s travel, but it leaves a ton of untapped musical potential in the key’s travel. It’s like Osmose is asking: how can we extract more gestural control out of the normal feel of a mechanical keyboard. (By contrast, the Seaboard’s approach is more like proposing a new direction for feel/haptics, while nonetheless preserving as much as possible of the layout of a piano style keyboard.)

It’s also very striking that they decided to leave out something as obvious as the X/Y position of the finger on the keys’ surface. On the one hand, there’s normally no haptic feedback about X/Y position on the key’s surface. On the other, unlike e.g. being mindful of the relative location of the different keys before hitting them, being mindful of X/Y position on the key’s surface is not a normal, intuitive part of what people pay attention to in learning how to play mechanical piano style keyboards.

Also, where they most obviously extended the mechanical range of keys, with side to side travel for pitch, they did so in a way that is about as intuitive as it gets even to non-musicians: side to side motion for pitch bend/vibrato, like with strings on a fingerboard.

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#204

They do indeed. I spent years buying and returning hammer action keyboards until I finally settled on (surprisingly, a cheap one) something that could bring out the nuance Pianoteq is capable of and that I needed for much of my synth work.
If you’re a classically trained pianist it’s really hard to let go of that very specific connection between velocity and sound. Not needed for many others, but for some of us it’s an essential tool.

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#205

Back to the osmosis - I’m thrilled that it has Poly Aftertouch and not just the MPE+ variety, making it useful for soft synths like Zebra that respond to it. Probably the only feature the Continuum lacks that I sometimes miss (only sometimes, because the EM is such a great tool for sound/instrument design).
I don’t see the Osmosis as competing with the Continuum at all. It’s a keyboard. The Continuum, despite the key overlay, never feels, to me, like a keyboard, but instead like a whole new instrument that happens to default to the same x-axis reference as a keyboard.
If the Osmosis is everything it appears to be, the Osmosis +Continuum combo will be, for me, absolute heaven.

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#206

Absolutely but then they’re a niche market of their own, and not your generic high end midi controller like Nectar / Novation / Komplete etc. offers at 49 notes. Mostly the weighted hammer action keyboards are big 88 notes keyboards, and they’re really a specific market (which I feel, is not competing at all with this product). But for more “general synths sounds” oriented controllers, this seems like a killer in terms of what it delivers in a referenced form factor. At the starting 1k price, it’s definitely a strong contender (it will stop being one at the designated 1,7k price though)

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#207

Honestly, I’ve never found anyone to have a satisfying control scheme for the Y axis on a piano layout. It just doesn’t feel right on a piano keyboard, because the black keys don’t cover the full range of Y like they do on continuum.

I’ve made a few experiments myself, subverting and rerouting their signals in max.

The best I’ve come up with is a relative control scheme, where your finger lands at zero no matter its position. Sliding it in either direction would increase a parameter until the key is released, or until you slide back to your starting point. (similar to how traditional aftertouch extends but doesn’t replace velocity)

And then, if you initially slide upwards, that should can control a different parameter than if your slide moved downwards.

This arrangement seems to work best sliding along a fixed distance from your initial position in Y, and never uses the full length of a key.

Anyway, this must be a weird compromise, because no one offers anything remotely like that.

The schemes that they do include, I usually disable.

(I don’t think it’s a matter of “not intuitive” so much as “not ergonomic” to play in those styles.)

But yeah. I often think of this general idea of “not really knowing what to do with the Y axis” as a flaw of the MPE spec. But I’m wrong. The problem isn’t Y position. The problem is this odd quirk of pianocentric layout. Stretch the black keys to cover the full Y axis, and everything makes sense.

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#208

We should just consider one stringed instrument layout to be the MPE norm, I guess if music tech was a sociologically Chinese driven industry, the Erhu would be the logical choice comparaisons and all the demos would be Erhu emulations and or weird orchestral percussions and it would show the benefits of MPE immediately ^^

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#209

Ah, so you’re a Dodeka fan? :slight_smile:

This parallels much of my thinking on the subject.

#210

My take: they’re bringing EaganMatrix to a wider audience, and turned half of the Touché SE into one key of a keyboard and then figured out a way to make 49 of them. It will take them at least as long to make the software user-friendly as it will to actually manufacture the keyboards in quantity; anyone who thinks that working with EaganMatrix is intuitive has been away from the great unwashed in the keyboard world for too long.

The stepping thing for Y is interesting, but I actually enjoy vertical Y motion for nuanced stuff. It works for grand gestures on the K-Board Pro 4 and I am learning how to make best use of it on the LinnStrument (Roger was kind enough to offer guidance on that which has proven very useful).

What I find most interesting about it is that it’s the first such controller that hasn’t triggered instant GAS in me; over the last few months, I have found my creative comfort zones, and I can now analyze new offerings and figure out whether they’ll work well for me or not. In this case, not.

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#211

Cuckoo demos:

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#212

Can’t decide. They flattened and relabeled the black keys, which is… interesting. I was imagining something which maintains those old landmarks, to leverage conditioned piano skills.

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#213

I also like the vertical Y axis.

however, I really like that expressive-e have looked beyond this, and thought about something that is suitable for the piano layout - I think this will make the osmosis quite a unique instrument.
… and that’s important, each expressive controllers i have, has a character of its own, and thats an important part of it.

of course, it means we need to stop thinking of expressive controllers as using xyz space (which they dont all adhere to anyway) , and perhaps think in terms of dimensions of sound e.g. pitch, timbre, loudness… MPE and these controllers then allow us to affect these in different ways (polyphonically)

btw: i seem to remember the MPE spec does not mention Y axis,
iirc, it talks of timbre… it also allow for any other polyphonic CCs as well, so you’re not limited to PB,ChPress, CC74 - so even more ‘dimensions’ :slight_smile:

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#214

This is a huge point. The only difference between certain acoustic instruments that sound totally different is the most convenient and available articulations. An XYZ surface opens up some possibilities while it also diminishes some.

To me, the envelope of the Touché has a certain sound, based on its resistance and bounce, which I happen to like.

I think we’re still in early times where, while designers accept some inherent limitations in their controllers, they don’t seem to lean into their particular sound, which I think would be the ideal.

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#215

Well, trying to quantify and codify these controllers leads to all sorts of assumptions that then dictate design and performance, but that’s been true ever since someone stuck an organ keyboard on a synthesizer… it will continue to evolve, and who knows where we will end up next.

I am having a great time reading the thread about the Osmose on a forum for gigging keyboardists… there is so much crusty old rocker get off my lawn there it’s a freakin’ riot. One guy actually stated that in his highly experienced opinion, side-to-side finger/key motion for pitch control would never fly. (He based this on the one keyboard he had used that had it: a Yamaha combo organ from the 1970s.)

I ask you!

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#216

This is exactly where i’m at - I need a new Midi Keyboard so i’m tempted by justifying it in that way. Very curious about the options to design sounds, as that could really make it or break it for me on the synth side of it. Certainly don’t know if i can justify it but its very tempting.

#217

So for a bit tl;dr

I’ve had my eye on the latest roli for a while but I’m no player

I know the first roli where rubbish but I’ve heard very good thugs about the latest rise ad m block - there’s a half price deal locally and I need a keyboard anyways

I have a shuttle control but would like to use bigwig as I just can’t do ableton any longer (but I might have to to run crow)

I’m not particularly interested in the native MPE players that roli make, I wanna use it my current setup, which doesn’t involve much computering

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#218

If you don’t want to use MPE, you can easily configure the Seaboards to use traditional MIDI. Pitch bend would be treated as global, since you’re only on one channel. And you’ll probably want to limit its range to match what your synths are using. (likely +/- 2 steps)

I do that for monosynths, and the AudioModeling SWAM instruments in particular. Works great in that context.

But if I’m playing chords, I don’t want global pitch bend attached to each finger. That’s just not a good control scheme.

I dunno. Half off is a good price, regardless.

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#219

Thank you for your reply - I have a shuttle control which does mpe
I’m just wondering about the actual feel of the blocks and keyboard, I don’t think I can get to the shop to try first
Edit : I notice I get a 3 month max 8 licence with it so I guess I can leverage more with that
Really like to use it in that environment and not inthe roli equator

#220

I don’t know that this is MPE specifically, but Artiphon’s new thing at least makes for a nifty accessory. Small, handheld, supports intuitive gestures…

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#221

I bit the bullet and preordered an Osmose -I had a feeling the preorders would fly off the shelf. I don’t have a decent midi controller, I love love love the sound of the EaganMatrix and every demo I’ve heard from this just looks so intuitive and sounds gorgeous. My Access Virus has been gathering dust for years and just feels really sluggish and clumsy in comparison -> time to sell.

Above all, the 40% discount is just silly

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