Roli Equator released

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Actually the five dimensions of touch are only useful for mono sounds if you don’t have mpe compatibility. Midi messages will conflict with multiple notes played simultaneously and be a mess. That’s what is special about mpe. Independent control per note.

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Echoes in the Attic wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:28 am Actually the five dimensions of touch are only useful for mono sounds if you don’t have mpe compatibility. Midi messages will conflict with multiple notes played simultaneously and be a mess. That’s what is special about mpe. Independent control per note.
Yeah... and of course if Roli had initially released a controller with 5D touch but only monophonic, a mass of users or potential users would have been clamoring for polyphony... i.e. MPE

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Echoes in the Attic wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:28 am Actually the five dimensions of touch are only useful for mono sounds if you don’t have mpe compatibility. Midi messages will conflict with multiple notes played simultaneously and be a mess. That’s what is special about mpe. Independent control per note.
First of all, no. You can use them with as much polyphony as you can manage, just like a Mod Wheel. Secondly, of course, which is why I keep my controller in Single Channel mode 90% of the time. But guess what, that doesn't affect how much fun I have playing all sorts of things from it because all 5 dimensions of touch are there for me to exploit. Finally, nobody is arguing about what MPE is/does, simply about how useful that is to most of us, most of the time. And so far nobody has managed to say a single thing to suggest that it is useful at all. Instead you just keep repeatedly explaining what it is, not why it is so valuable that we should all run out and buy brand new host applications to support it. That is the original context in which I started this line of discussion - trying to assure people that they can use something like a Seaboard, whether their host supports MPE or not, and they will still get a lot out of it. You guys arguing against that, though, which is likely putting people off.
Last edited by BONES on Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:41 am As I said earlier, different for guitar players but all those other things you mention are just things I'd programme in if I needed/wanted them, even if it meant using two instances instead of one.
What I wanted to point out is, that "programming in" is the opposite of expression. For the non performing composer of course its the only expression you can have...; - )
BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:41 am
Tj Shredder wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:23 am Try to play a chord and only bend a single note... Impossible without MPE...
Sure but my point is how often do you need to do that? For me, the answer is never and in all the demo videos I've watched, it's only ever been done to show that it can be.
For me its at least one note of every chord I play...
and look at this guy, Serum isn't MPE by the way, but in Bitwig or Logic you can set it up for MPE...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnwSZBVJV8g
BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:41 am
Even such fundamental playing techniques as a vibrato isn‘t possible with a normal keyboard, there you can preprogram a vibrato speed/depth and throw it in with an extra hand. But its fixed - not expressive like with a violin or guitar...
That comes down to programming. You can modulate the vibrato rate and depth any way you like - mod wheel, velocity, after touch - and be at least as expressive as any guitarist or violin player.
Obviously you never played an expressive instrument! With programming you can't even get close: each moment and micromovement is different at any time. You can program when and how much a modulation will jump in, but it would be the same for each note, even if you put some random into it it has no relation to the emotion of that magic moment...
BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:41 am
Of course, if you do not enhance/change your playing style you would simply waist the potential...
You have to multiply the 5 dimensions with 10, as each finger gets five...
Only if you want to do all that, which is a tail-wagging-the-dog sort of scenario. i.e. You hare just doing it because you can, not because it's necessary.
For me the necessity was first there. I stopped using synths for 25 years because of their lack of expressivity. Only now I am in again with the wonderful LinnStrument. The Seaboard did not convince me by the way, my first encounter was a Haken Continuum, but I could only dream of getting one. Now I wouldn't exchange it for my LinnStrument...
Obviously for you its less important, but I can only encourage you to get more into the expressive part of your set. It will boost life into it, but only if you use it...

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BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 7:03 am
Echoes in the Attic wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:28 am Actually the five dimensions of touch are only useful for mono sounds if you don’t have mpe compatibility. Midi messages will conflict with multiple notes played simultaneously and be a mess. That’s what is special about mpe. Independent control per note.
First of all, no. You can use them with as much polyphony as you can manage, just like a Mod Wheel. Secondly, of course, which is why I keep my controller in Single Channel mode 90% of the time. But guess what, that doesn't affect how much fun I have playing all sorts of things from it because all 5 dimensions of touch are there for me to exploit. Finally, nobody is arguing about what MPE is/does, simply about how useful that is to most of us, most of the time. And so far nobody has managed to say a single thing to suggest that it is useful at all. Instead you just keep repeatedly explaining what it is, not why it is so valuable that we should all run out and buy brand new host applications to support it. That is the original context in which I started this line of discussion - trying to assure people that they can use something like a Seaboard, whether their host supports MPE or not, and they will still get a lot our of it. You guys arguing against that thought are just putting people off.
Maybe we haven't properly expressed how useful it is because it is normally self-evident upon explaining it? Explaining it sort of is explaining it's usefulness. I for one don't know how simple to make this explanation, I assumed you got the basics, but I'm not sure honestly if you do or not. The fact that you think using a mod wheel, or the equivalent of several mod wheels, at the same time, with polyphony but single channel midi, is anything at all like having separate control per note of several expression plus pitch bending, indicates you might not understand the very basics. And I'm not trying to be insulting. Or it might indicate that you find no use in different notes having different amounts of pitch bends or expressions, because of the way you write music, so you would normally assign the same modulations to all notes all the time. But most people get that bending the pitch of one note while not bending the pitch of another note, can be super useful, both for emulating natural sounds, like a guitar, or for new composition possibilities with synths etc. Same goes for other expressions. Previously, the only way you could have modulation happening independently on different notes was pre-designed modulation, like envelopes and lfos etc. So unlike a mod wheel, the parameter change doesn't happen at the same time on all notes, but it gives it much more richness. Think of if every cello and violin in the orchestra played with the exact same vibrato and bow pressure etc. It would sound synthetic and weird. That is what a mod wheel does. Same expression to all notes. With MPE the benefit is that you can play a chord and for example make one or some of the lower notes brighter without affecting the upper notes, or have other parameters changing independently per note at the rate that you chose in the performance, rather than the pre-design modulations like lfo's and envelopes. So for many people that ability to essentially create real-time envelopes and modulations on a note basis is very liberating, and makes the overall sound more a result of a performance rather than a preset sound that does the work for you.

I hope that helps. If you don't see any use of this, I don't think it is because it hasn't been properly explained to you, I think it's just because you don't value that capability. Which is fine. Some guitar players might never us hammer-ons/hammer-offs or ever bend a note, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable for expression to other guitarists.

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Yeah, no, the things you can do with MPE, particularly in my case with the ROLI Seaboard, unquestionably cannot be approached with mere "programming'.
Things occur, including surprises and accident, that do not come in abstraction looking at the piano roll with the pencil tool.

If you do not have a host that can do Note Expression, you don't have that technology to program. Further, if you do not have a way to leverage an instrument to program these, example given: 5 dimensions, it doesn't happen, by definition. {NB: you can leverage VST2 instruments with Note Expression for such a controller, using MIDI input = Any/Omni (but not all hosts will, evidently.)}.

So a basic setting with the ROLI is pitch bend extent = 48. So I do some things with 'glide' with an instrument set to that and this is a whole new ballgame in the pitch bend lane. 8192 ÷ 24 semitones, vs 8192 ÷ 2, bipolar. I'm really interested in for instance Indian expression, eg., Sarod... or as a wind instrument in any case; as a violin; as a fretless anything really. Vocal quality expression, in so many words. And no, I don't think penciling that in - which I do extensively to begin with - to this extent cuts it. You aren't going to draw a very well resolved line or parabola for it, for instance so you're thinking about numbers. Which isn't such a big deal with pitch bend = 2 +/-. But I can say from long experience w. pitch bend wheel or lever, and/or control lane, this is not glide on my ROLI or anywhere close.

Then, vibrato using pitch bend, vibrato as on a string instrument in a literal sense. No, a single LFO frequency brought in by mod wheel is nothing like this. Manipulating the pitch wheel doesn't give you this, even if all you care about is the discrete single note (and as pointed out, there's more available now). You could be Jan Hammer, doesn't matter.

I'm a reluctant consumer, frugal, I grew up that way. So I wasn't trying to buy a lot of controller. One day I was looking at 'AR Rahman at Berklee' at the Youtube, and followed suggestions to find him using the Haaken Continuum in a video. Well, that's a whole lot of money I don't have; but I followed up with a little bit of research to the Linnstrument, a tutorial on leveraging Note Expression in Cubase for it, and next I found the ROLI. Soon I was pulling the trigger for the $299 plus $79 for Equator after a minute.

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Tj Shredder wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:49 pm
BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:41 am As I said earlier, different for guitar players but all those other things you mention are just things I'd programme in if I needed/wanted them, even if it meant using two instances instead of one.
What I wanted to point out is, that "programming in" is the opposite of expression. For the non performing composer of course its the only expression you can have...; - )
BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:41 am
Tj Shredder wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:23 am Try to play a chord and only bend a single note... Impossible without MPE...
Sure but my point is how often do you need to do that? For me, the answer is never and in all the demo videos I've watched, it's only ever been done to show that it can be.
Sure, for you. But then you actually try to argue that it's not useful per se, with an argument from ignorance: all you've ever seen is the tail wagging the dog.

No, as a guitarist who bent strings it's everyday; the basic blues moves I learned when I was a kid involved, for example holding down string 1 & 2 with a 1/3 barre and bending string 3 up to match the pitch of string 2. It's done constantly, one or more notes held/not bent while a lower note is bent.

If you're Jan Hammer or somebody imitating it on a synth, you're restricted, you can't hold the higher note. This is so basic.
It's actually included in certain guitar sample libraries, scripted in for instance Orange Tree Samples. Here it's performable. live, without having to write/program it following the script, or think like that.

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Echoes in the Attic wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:18 pm With MPE the benefit is that you can play a chord and for example make one or some of the lower notes brighter without affecting the upper notes, or have other parameters changing independently per note at the rate that you chose in the performance, rather than the pre-design modulations like lfo's and envelopes.
And even if you are not purposefully modulating individual notes in a chord, there is still subtle variation. There are slight pitch variations, more or less AT added, different Y position. Just simply playing chords there is a more organic character to it... less repetitive and mechanical.

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Yeah, I can only add to the notions expressed here.
I always found normal keyboards rather dull. Works for playing piano, organ or harpsi - since that is what it originally was made for - but for anything else, the simple "on-off" logic is pretty lame. And no, Pitchbend or the Modwheel do not do it either, you do not get the intricate interactions between individual differences in pitch or sound that an acoustic instrument always has - and you need another hand for those...
Static LFOs for vibrato I always hated with all my heart, mixing in smooth random vibrato is slightly better IMO, but again its static and you aren't able to really "play" it like every violin or cello player does - or only have vibrato on one note, not on others.

I tried the LinnStrument and somehow wasn't completely convinced by the surface feel, as much as I like everything else about it (and Roger himself :-) ).
I tried the bigger Roli Seaboards and found them too squishy.
The Haaken Continuum was out of my range anyway so I didn't even try ;-)
But recently I found that the Roli Seaboard Block has a much firmer feel than the bigger Seaboards and my fingers rather like it - not perfect, but pretty good - and relatively affordable too. I may get another one to have more range

And now, just like with a real instrument, I can get lost in playing even the most simple sounds, since just holding one low note and playing higher notes alongside while bending them in and out of tune or glide to other notes is what real music is about for me.
The above video is a great example for what that does to expressiveness.

This video was what originally made me aware why I hate normal keyboards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nq3Q4tHvHY
And all of this from a friggin 100 millisecond viola sample... !

As for editing: Since Bitwig 2.4.x, MPE works almost perfect and can be edited comfortably with the per-note expressions. But I'm not sure I will use that much, since it's about playing and performance for me.

And: Talking about it is like talking about food. Doesn't really work and the wording becomes weird fast. How would I explain how a really good butter tastes over a really bland one?
You have to try it, give it a bit of time and see if it is for you.
Words are just placeholders for the real thing.

For me its the biggest and most important thing since synths themselves were invented. :clap:
Now finally we can really play them as they deserve to be played.

Add something like this and you go back full circle and are playing an actual instrument again with it's specific character, resonances and timbre, not just some dead code or circuit on "neutral" speakers:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/la ... dboard-res

Cheers,

Tom
"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." - Rumi
Sculptures ScreenDream Mastodon

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Tj Shredder wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:49 pmWhat I wanted to point out is, that "programming in" is the opposite of expression. For the non performing composer of course its the only expression you can have...; - )
Nice try but live performance is why I make music. That doesn't mean I have to play everything in realtime myself. I can be far more expressive through programming because I don't have to deal with the physical limitations of the human body. I can play 1000 notes at once and apply different modulation (expression) to each of them if that's what I want to do and it will be perfect the first time. I don't need to practice it, which leaves me much freer to experiment without feeling like I've wasted a whole heap of time.
For me its at least one note of every chord I play...
So you didn't bother with computers three years ago, before MPE, I take it?
and look at this guy, Serum isn't MPE by the way, but in Bitwig or Logic you can set it up for MPE...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnwSZBVJV8g
It looks like you could do that with aftertouch and maybe a keyboard split (assuming his left hand is also playing something), which you don't need MPE for. Of course, you'd have to learn to play keyboards to do it, and it wouldn't be as impressive to watch, but it would work.
Obviously you never played an expressive instrument! With programming you can't even get close: each moment and micromovement is different at any time.
This is the perfect illustration of what I'm trying to get through your thick, unreceptive heads - I can use GLIDE on my Roli without MPE to add as much sloppy human expression as I want. I don't need MPE to do it. Why is this not completely obvious to you?
You can program when and how much a modulation will jump in, but it would be the same for each note, even if you put some random into it it has no relation to the emotion of that magic moment...
The only emotion I ever want to hear in my music is rage and metronomic expression works just fine for that most of the time. When it doesn't, I always have my Roli to add something less precise.
For me the necessity was first there. I stopped using synths for 25 years because of their lack of expressivity.
25 years ago there were breath controllers you could have used on top of velocity, aftertouch, mod wheel and pitch bend for plenty of expression. You were just too lazy/disinterested to bother with it.
Only now I am in again with the wonderful LinnStrument. The Seaboard did not convince me by the way, my first encounter was a Haken Continuum, but I could only dream of getting one. Now I wouldn't exchange it for my LinnStrument...
I watch that guy play in the video and I haven't the first clue what the hell he is doing. It would be easier for me to take up bassoon than work out how to play a Linnstrument.
Obviously for you its less important, but I can only encourage you to get more into the expressive part of your set. It will boost life into it, but only if you use it...
Don't think for a second that the things that work for you will work for everyone else. That video you linked to, for example, I found utterly tedious and completely self-indulgent. It is the antithesis of what I try to achieve with my music. I want to destroy the world with my music, not make myself feel good.
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BONES wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:58 pm The only emotion I ever want to hear in my music is rage...
I want to destroy the world with my music, not make myself feel good.
Hm - well in that case, you of course do not need 5 dimensions of expression... ;-)
A good therapist should do.

Cheers,

Tom
"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." - Rumi
Sculptures ScreenDream Mastodon

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f**k me swingin'!! I have said at least a dozen times that I absolutely want/need the 5 dimensions of touch, I just don't need MPE. At least make the effort to read and comprehend before bothering to post. Honestly, it would be easier to make a pack of dogs understand.
jancivil wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:18 pm Yeah, no, the things you can do with MPE, particularly in my case with the ROLI Seaboard, unquestionably cannot be approached with mere "programming'.
Things occur, including surprises and accident, that do not come in abstraction looking at the piano roll with the pencil tool.
Explain to me how those things don't occur in Single Channel mode. Because all of that is possible with or without MPE. You're limited thinking when it comes to automation is also clearly distorting your judgement because 99% of the automation I create I do with my mouse, controlling knobs, faders and buttons on instrument GUIs. It's a physical process little different from playing a real instrument. I only go to the piano roll or an event window to tidy things up (which is far more efficient and immediate than practicing a few times before I record).
And now, just like with a real instrument, I can get lost in playing even the most simple sounds, since just holding one low note and playing higher notes alongside while bending them in and out of tune or glide to other notes is what real music is about for me.
Again, you show how little you know about getting the most out of a set-up. If I wanted to do as you describe, I'd play the low notes on one instrument, say my Uno or Ultranova (something starting with "u"), and the other stuff on another instrument, maybe my Seaboard Rise in Single Channel mode or my Analog Keys with aftertouch, and get exactly the same result. Or I could set up a split in my host and do it all with two soft synths from a single keyboard. Simple solutions that don't require MPE.
This video was what originally made me aware why I hate normal keyboards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nq3Q4tHvHY
Most of that doesn't require MPE, either. The first bit does, if you only have the one instrument, but after that he is mostly only playing one note at a time.
As for editing: Since Bitwig 2.4.x, MPE works almost perfect and can be edited comfortably with the per-note expressions. But I'm not sure I will use that much, since it's about playing and performance for me.
Handy if you have Bitwig. I don't have Bitwig yet everything you describe, everything you demonstrate through videos, is stuff I can do with my Seaboard Rise without MPE. And that's what matters.
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Rest in peace man.

Cheers, over and out ;-)

Tom
"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." - Rumi
Sculptures ScreenDream Mastodon

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Good lord Bones, it's pretty simple. You can use 5 dimensions of touch if you are playing monophoniclly without an mpe compatible instrument or host. You need both in order to do this polyphonically. And obviously we are talking about using ONE instrument, not MULTIPLE instruments. That's the point. To play one instrument this way, with two hands. Live. Not programming. There is no arguing this, it is not possible otherwise. If you think that you can, you are showing that you can not notice that the individual keys modulations you are doing are not independent, or you are doing exactly the same gesture with every note anyways, so you aren't noticing a conflict occurring. For example with a simple one channel no mpe set up, and you are attempting modulations like aftertouch or timbre (Y axis), can you not notice that pushing down on one note make the modulations happen to all notes? And that if you try to do differing amounts of modulations on different notes, you will get glitches and jumps because the single midi messages you are sending from multiple sources are conflicting? Can you not notice that when you pitch bend one note, that the other notes you are holding are also bend? Do you really think the rest of the people that understand and appreciate mpe are just crazy and all this midi specification writing was for nothing because people could do it anyways? Dunning-Kruger effect in full force here.

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Exactly! Which is why I wanted to assure anyone who was thinking about buying a Seaboard that even if their host doesn't support MPE, they'll still get a helluva lot out of it. Pretty simple, yeah? But no, everyone has to pile on and say that without MPE a Seaboard is useless, like they want to keep it all to themselves and put other people off. D!ckheads, basically.
Echoes in the Attic wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 1:38 amTo play one instrument this way, with two hands. Live. Not programming. There is no arguing this, it is not possible otherwise.
Of course it is, anyone with even basic knowledge of the technology knows this. I'd also point out that neither a Seaboard nor Linnstrument are actual instruments. Both are controller keyboards that require an external sound source, which I would dare to suggest is going to be a computer in 99% of cases (although I can use mine with my MicroMonsta if I want to be arsed setting it up). It's a doddle to do a keyboard split so that your left and right hands play the same sound from two different instances of the same virtual instrument. So when you use GLIDE or PRESS with one hand, it doesn't affect the note(s) you are playing with the other hand. Job done, no-one will know the difference between that and MPE and you'll still have 15 more MIDI channels for the rest of the instruments you need to play a whole arrangement.
For example with a simple one channel no mpe set up, and you are attempting modulations like aftertouch or timbre (Y axis), can you not notice that pushing down on one note make the modulations happen to all notes?
Poor example as polyphonic aftertouch has been around for a very long time - Yamaha's CS80 was the first synth I know of to use it but most Ensoniq synths from the late 1980s onwards had it, too, and it all worked on one MIDI channel.
Do you really think the rest of the people that understand and appreciate mpe are just crazy and all this midi specification writing was for nothing because people could do it anyways?
Well, if your post is indicative of those people then yes, clearly they are crazy. Or ignorant. Or just plain stupid. Take your pick.
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