How Widely Is MPE Being Used in Music Production?

[pdxindy]

I'm actually slightly surprised there aren't more people who don't care about MPE.

- MPE is a very controller-oriented thing, and a lot of people do everything through sequencing. It's all step sequencers, piano rolls, trackers, etc.

MPE started out as a controller/performance playing idea... but it is useful for people who do mainly draw stuff in the piano roll too.

Once synths are able to respond to MPE, that capability can be used in all sorts of creative ways for sequencing too.

[GruvSyco]

MPE to me seems largely like something that people like Jordan Rudess, who like to overplay the shit out of everything, need. I have no desire for their bukkake of notes being expressed all over me. I’ve yet to hear anything at all that’s really made me impressed. Most of it seems used for trying to make synths sound like “real instruments”. Meh. I do have a Linnstrument. I wanted to give MPE a try and came to the aforementioned conclusion about it. I do dig it as a grid-based controller though.

[foosnark]

MPE started out as a controller/performance playing idea... but it is useful for people who do mainly draw stuff in the piano roll too.

Huh, I'm trying to picture that, it just seems like it'd be very fiddly to work with.

MPE to me seems largely like something that people like Jordan Rudess, who like to overplay the shit out of everything, need. I have no desire for their bukkake of notes being expressed all over me.

I like MPE for sparse playing. Assigning pressure so it's the thing that controls amplitude (and maybe filters/waveshaping). Not a style that lends itself to maximum speed virtuoso bullshit, more "I don't want this to sound like I was playing a keyboard" stuff.

[pdxindy]

MPE to me seems largely like something that people like Jordan Rudess, who like to overplay the shit out of everything, need.

That is only one use for MPE.

For example, the Bitwig arpeggiator responds to per voice aftertouch so if you are holding 3 notes on the Linnstrument, you can press down one note and that controls the velocity of those specific notes as they arpeggiate. Makes the arpeggiator more nuanced and less mechanical.

Also, one can make pressure add a note repeat so if you are holding notes that are sequenced, you can add repeats when you want in a fluid way.

There are all sorts of ways to use MPE that have nothing to do with playing like Rudess.

[pdxindy]

MPE started out as a controller/performance playing idea... but it is useful for people who do mainly draw stuff in the piano roll too.

Huh, I'm trying to picture that, it just seems like it'd be very fiddly to work with.

Suppose you have a polyphonic midi clip and you want one note to do something different. Before MPE, you would have to make a second track with a separate instance of the plugin with a slightly edited preset.

Now, say you want the filter cutoff a bit more open on one note, modulate cutoff with Timbre and change the timbre curve for that one note in the editor.

Doing stuff like that is less fiddly than the same thing used to be before MPE.

[Fannon]

MPE started out as a controller/performance playing idea... but it is useful for people who do mainly draw stuff in the piano roll too.

Huh, I'm trying to picture that, it just seems like it'd be very fiddly to work with.

Suppose you have a polyphonic midi clip and you want one note to do something different. Before MPE, you would have to make a second track with a separate instance of the plugin with a slightly edited preset.

Now, say you want the filter cutoff a bit more open on one note, modulate cutoff with Timbre and change the timbre curve for that one note in the editor.

Doing stuff like that is less fiddly than the same thing used to be before MPE.

But MPE does feel like a "workaround" to achieve this in a DAW.

In Bitwig you have the Note Expressions and you can draw in quite a few per-note modulations in the native piano roll. Btw. with CLAP, this seems to be converted then back to MPE for synths that support it.

See https://www.bitwig.com/de/userguide/lat ... te_events/ (Note-Event-Expressions)

[foosnark]

Hmm, I just never looked that deeply into Bitwig's sequencing stuff, there's more detail there that I just sort of glossed over. Where it comes to sequencing I prefer an 8-note analog step sequencer looping indefinitely or else some modular logic games.

(I still feel like MPE lends itself naturally toward being controller-centric though...)

[Vortifex]

I don't care about it at all. I'm not a great keyboard player, and get all the expressivity I need using velocity as a modulation source, mapping parameters to my controller, and programming in the DAW.

[kritikon]

I have no desire for their bukkake of notes being expressed all over me. I’ve yet to hear anything at all that’s really made me impressed.

I think that belongs in a quote of the year category. It's also pretty well my view on prog rock, jazz, R'n'B vocal pyrotechnics and every other form of musician self-wankery. (And I suspect MPE is used a lot in those genres, apart from the vocal wankery). I think it's mainly why I don't like Moogs. The synths themselves are OK, though not amazing filters IMO, but so many demos of Moogs end up with the player wanking himself up and down the keyboard in prog/jazz finger exercises. For some reason they are synths that promote wankery, and MPE seems a bit like a cock sleeve.

[GruvSyco]

I have no desire for their bukkake of notes being expressed all over me. I’ve yet to hear anything at all that’s really made me impressed.

I think that belongs in a quote of the year category. It's also pretty well my view on prog rock, jazz, R'n'B vocal pyrotechnics and every other form of musician self-wankery. (And I suspect MPE is used a lot in those genres, apart from the vocal wankery)

I call that Tarzan-ing… and yeah.

[kritikon]

Tarzaning - I like that too. GruvSyco and KvR are going to get along just fine.

[dlandis]

I have two MPE controllers: Roli Rise 2 and Embodme Erae Touch. Both work really well in Bitwig with no issues. Rise 2 works well in Studio One (except for the loss of Lift there; Studio One only deals with Strike, Pressure, Slide, and Glide,) but the Erae Touch in Studio One is a bit problematic as there is an issue with notes that have a long envelope release segment. For those who know I've mentioned this before, please forgive the repetition.

It can probably be said that I play keyboard better than I have a right to, but not as well as I should (I sense that describes many of us.) I am primarily a saxophonist, who also plays flute, and WX5 augmented with foot pedals and foot controllers. My primary genre is jazz and jazz-related.

The Erae Touck I tend to keep in an anamorphic configuation (like the Linnstrument). Oddly, while I use the Rise 2 mostly for pads and such, the Erae Touch configured anamorphically seems to beg to be used as a melody/bassline instrument. This may change as I feel that I am still getting used to anamorphic playing. Under Bitwig, both are tons of fun to use.

Interestingly, it's important when I need it, but while I seem to use it on most of my songs/projects, but not all. I think it is here to stay. It will be interesting to see what happens if/when MIDI 2.0 really comes into play (and I'm seriously not expecting that before 2029, FWIW.)

[Razzia]

It looks cool but I don't see how those little 25 key Roli controllers are worth $250. I won't care about MPE until someone makes a controller that's reasonably priced, which will probably be a long time from now, IF it gets adopted as a standard. The 49 key Roli Seaboard is half as expensive as my Hydrasynth, which has Poly AT and a fantastic synth engine, and is built solid enough to bludgeon a medium sized mountain lion.

[jules99]

If you ask music producers, you're probably going to get a rather small number that rely on MPE in their daily workflow. For two reasons: MPE sounds tend to be pretty complex and are often (of course, heavily depending on the genre you produce in) not easy to place in a full song arrangement. I usually use MPE sounds either in slowly-evolving ambient pieces or as a replacement for guitar solos. But as a starting block for a song, playing perfectly in time loop with a Seaboard is just too challenging. Because quantizing MPE is messy.

If you ask film music producers, however, it's a very different story. Here, MPE is very much establishes, as these long, drawn-out MPE sounds are perfect for loads of different moods that used to require endless amounts of automation.

As electronically produced music has always been very much on-the-grid, MPE has a hard time breaking that up.

But I still vividly remember the first few months with the Seaboard. Few musical things have been as as inspiring and have felt as organic and, yes, revolutionary as holding a couple of notes, slowly pressing one, slowly sliding another and thus performing a whole sound design symphony.

[enCiphered]

It looks cool but I don't see how those little 25 key Roli controllers are worth $250. I won't care about MPE until someone makes a controller that's reasonably priced, which will probably be a long time from now, IF it gets adopted as a standard. The 49 key Roli Seaboard is half as expensive as my Hydrasynth, which has Poly AT and a fantastic synth engine, and is built solid enough to bludgeon a medium sized mountain lion.

I feel the same way about this. After much deliberation, I decided to buy a Linnstrument, but I would never pay that much money for an MPE controller again. I'm not sure what the larger Roli ones cost, but the prices are outrageous and completely unjustified. In my opinion, this is the main reason why MPE is not yet a standard.