Nice to hear about a MPE implementation.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 9:12 am Several users have requested MPE support. Today i ordered a MPE-controller and will start working on implementing support for MPE this week. So most likely Icarus2 will support it.
I got mixed feelings about the MPE specification. My opinion is that it is not very well-designed and looks more like a dirty hack. Why?
- It only supports 16 voices properly
- It opens the door for bugs
- I can create incompatibilities between manufacturers
- It breaks the midi specification
- If a midi device is disconnected and re-connected it will play wrong notes, because the midi-in device can't know that MPE mode is connected
- Why do they not use NRPNs?
Available now: Tone2 Icarus2.5 - Wavetable Workstation
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- KVRian
- 1236 posts since 8 Jan, 2012 from frankfurt, Germany
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- KVRian
- 1236 posts since 8 Jan, 2012 from frankfurt, Germany
+1 there have been a lot of free updates with a lot of features and enhanced sound quality. I think also an update price like xils labs or u-he do offer, make a bether costumer loyality. If you compare all the free U-He Updates, for Diva etc and the paid Hive 2 for $20 or Zebra 3 for $30 and the xils lab stuff for $30 ....fmr wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 9:57 amThis is true. I was somehow pissed with the update policy of Tone 2 until the last couple of years, but they certainly improved in customer support and free upgrades/updates recently.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2019 2:06 pm We have drastically improved our update-policy completely since two years.
We released a large number of free updates and even free upgrades (Gladiator3) with a massive number of new features. You can validate this for yourself if you visit this website and click on 'what's new'.
https://www.tone2.com/download.html
That said, I also think that a price of $50 is more in line to what has been seen in the market than a price of $70 or more. This may seem like peanuts, but sometimes is a frotier between having a successful upgrade or not.
So I think a lower update price can reach more in overall
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- Banned
- 658 posts since 4 Oct, 2018
I have all but one Nemesis soundsets and frankly am disappointed with the quality of most patches.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2019 2:06 pm We offer soundsets and expansions in a price range from €29 to €59. All of them were built by professional designers, contain only hand-picked patches and come with an installer. Please note that most of them contain more patches than conventional sets (100 up to 324 sounds, mostly 200).
Why?
I get the feeling that the designers were not very well familiar with the oscillators and the possibilities they provide, and have compensated by adding effects. Turn those off - especially the reverb wash that's almost in every patch - and what remains is a weak and often irritating oscillator buzz.
Another thing: how many mainstream trance leads do we need, with only minor differences in timbre between this one and that one? Same goes for bass patches that are not even half-way there (yes, it's low frequency, but is it bass?), keys, etc.
Yet another thing - 'realistic', so-called semi-real presets. Organs, trumpets, etc. Those titles are... misleading.
Not enough experimentation, most things are too traditional and well known, already there in the factory bank. Why did I pay to get more of the same?
With that said, Nemesis is my number 1 synth and thank you Markus for making such a gift to us*. Applause!
* Well, I did buy it, but still consider it a gift.
Last edited by perfumer on Wed Aug 21, 2019 2:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- KVRist
- 235 posts since 11 Oct, 2012
I wrote some words praising MPE and stuff, but my post vanished when logging in. Not in the mood to write all of it again and no idea how to delete this lol.sacer wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 1:13 pmNice to hear about a MPE implementation.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 9:12 am Several users have requested MPE support. Today i ordered a MPE-controller and will start working on implementing support for MPE this week. So most likely Icarus2 will support it.
I got mixed feelings about the MPE specification. My opinion is that it is not very well-designed and looks more like a dirty hack. Why?
- It only supports 16 voices properly
- It opens the door for bugs
- I can create incompatibilities between manufacturers
- It breaks the midi specification
- If a midi device is disconnected and re-connected it will play wrong notes, because the midi-in device can't know that MPE mode is connected
- Why do they not use NRPNs?
Anyways in short: Good news about MPE! And have lots of fun with your new controller!
Some music with visuals and mixed tutorials related to game dev and sound design: https://www.youtube.com/@MetasideOfficial
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- KVRAF
- 8490 posts since 5 Aug, 2009
Here i totally agree. There is too much of edm leads etc. A vst like icarus should present more crazy and complex patches. E.g. 20% bread and butter and the rest the rest ;)perfumer wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 2:02 pmI have all but one Nemesis soundsets and frankly am disappointed with the quality of most patches.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Tue Aug 20, 2019 2:06 pm We offer soundsets and expansions in a price range from €29 to €59. All of them were built by professional designers, contain only hand-picked patches and come with an installer. Please note that most of them contain more patches than conventional sets (100 up to 324 sounds, mostly 200).
Why?
I get the feeling that the designers were not very well familiar with the oscillators and the possibilities they provide, and have compensated by adding effects. Turn those off - especially the reverb wash that's almost in every patch - and what remains is a weak and often irritating oscillator buzz.
Another thing: how many mainstream trance leads do we need, with only minor differences in timbre between this one and that one? Same goes for bass patches that are not even half-way there (yes, it's low frequency, but is it bass?), keys, etc.
Yet another thing - 'realistic', so-called semi-real presets. Organs, trumpets, etc. Those titles are... misleading. :roll:
Not enough experimentation, most things are too traditional and well known, already there in the factory bank. Why did I pay to get more of the same?
With that said, Nemesis is my number 1 synth and thank you Markus for making such a gift to us*. Applause! :clap: :clap: :clap:
* Well, I did buy it, but still consider it a gift.
DAW FL Studio Audio Interface Focusrite Scarlett 1st Gen 2i2 CPU Intel i7-7700K 4.20 GHz, RAM 32 GB Dual-Channel DDR4 @2400MHz Corsair Vengeance. MB Asus Prime Z270-K, GPU Gainward 1070 GTX GS 8GB NT Be Quiet DP 550W OS Win10 64Bit
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Echoes in the Attic Echoes in the Attic https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=180417
- KVRAF
- 11053 posts since 12 May, 2008
That's amazing! Icarus 2 is as good as purchased in my mind.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 9:12 am Several users have requested MPE support. Today i ordered a MPE-controller and will start working on implementing support for MPE this week. So most likely Icarus2 will support it.
I got mixed feelings about the MPE specification. My opinion is that it is not very well-designed and looks more like a dirty hack. Why?
- It only supports 16 voices properly
- It opens the door for bugs
- I can create incompatibilities between manufacturers
- It breaks the midi specification
- If a midi device is disconnected and re-connected it will play wrong notes, because the midi-in device can't know that MPE mode is connected
- Why do they not use NRPNs?
Surprised to hear about your mixed feelings for MPE, and that it breaks midi specification, given that it is now officially part of the midi spec isn't it? If you want to see a great example of mpe implementation look at Roli Equator. Strobe and Cypher are good too but a bit complicated overall, whereas Equator is much more straight forward when it comes to the mpe mapping. I'm not sure if it would be possible in Icarus but the scaling graphs you see in Equator can be very handy, even necessary sometimes for MPE mapping. Would be great to have a few curves in Icarus for scaling, or perhaps there would be a way to have an alternate mode for the multi-stage envelopes function as scaling curves. See pic below:
- KVRAF
- 25415 posts since 3 Feb, 2005 from in the wilds
Even if it has some flaws... it still opens a whole world of expressive playing not previously possible.Markus Krause wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 9:12 am Several users have requested MPE support. Today i ordered a MPE-controller and will start working on implementing support for MPE this week. So most likely Icarus2 will support it.
I got mixed feelings about the MPE specification. My opinion is that it is not very well-designed and looks more like a dirty hack. Why?
- It only supports 16 voices properly
- It opens the door for bugs
- I can create incompatibilities between manufacturers
- It breaks the midi specification
- If a midi device is disconnected and re-connected it will play wrong notes, because the midi-in device can't know that MPE mode is connected
- Why do they not use NRPNs?
- that is a good point, but 16 voices is enough for MPE to be useful in almost all situations
- any new feature can create possibility of new bugs
- it does... but there are already incompatibilities between developers
- how does it break the midi specification?
- if I unplug my Linnstrument and plug it back in it does not play wrong notes
- I don't know... but it took a long time to get the current MPE agreed upon. Even if not the best approach, we at least have something that is functional.
Very good news about MPE in Icarus 2! I would have upgraded regardless, but MPE support makes it a must have.
- KVRAF
- 25415 posts since 3 Feb, 2005 from in the wilds
I was thinking that maybe there could be another tab in the new layout in the MSEG section that has a simple curve for velocity, aftertouch, timbre and release.Echoes in the Attic wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 3:03 pmI'm not sure if it would be possible in Icarus but the scaling graphs you see in Equator can be very handy, even necessary sometimes for MPE mapping. Would be great to have a few curves in Icarus for scaling, or perhaps there would be a way to have an alternate mode for the multi-stage envelopes function as scaling curves.
- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1748 posts since 2 Jul, 2018
I've gone through the specification. From what i see so far:
MPE could occasionally create trouble, especially when an MPE device shares a midi-stream with an older Midi device which works in a multitimbral mode. The old device is not aware of the MPE mode and can not handle the incoming data properly. To be safe you should connect MPE devices to separate Midi-interfaces.
Problems could (but must not) also occur if MPE-synths are plugged/unplugged while a stream is sent ( especially when an MPE device shares a midi-stream with an older Midi device which works in a multitimbral mode) , because the control signal which initializes MPE-mode is missing.
The way how midi-channels are assigned to the notes makes me also a bit worried, especially when the limit of 16 channels is reached. If the limit is reached and one key uses a per-channel-pitchbend command and another key is assigned to the same channel a glitch will happen, because the old value is overwritten. The problem will happen only rarely unless another midi-device with several channels is sending sharing the same stream.
MPE could occasionally create trouble, especially when an MPE device shares a midi-stream with an older Midi device which works in a multitimbral mode. The old device is not aware of the MPE mode and can not handle the incoming data properly. To be safe you should connect MPE devices to separate Midi-interfaces.
Problems could (but must not) also occur if MPE-synths are plugged/unplugged while a stream is sent ( especially when an MPE device shares a midi-stream with an older Midi device which works in a multitimbral mode) , because the control signal which initializes MPE-mode is missing.
The way how midi-channels are assigned to the notes makes me also a bit worried, especially when the limit of 16 channels is reached. If the limit is reached and one key uses a per-channel-pitchbend command and another key is assigned to the same channel a glitch will happen, because the old value is overwritten. The problem will happen only rarely unless another midi-device with several channels is sending sharing the same stream.
- KVRAF
- 2338 posts since 28 Feb, 2015
I can count around 7-10 people continuesly asking for MPE support (same people every time) in all plugins and DAWs in the KVR forum, so I wonder how high the demand really is.
i9-10900K | 128GB DDR4 | RTX 3090 | Arturia AudioFuse/KeyLab mkII/SparkLE | PreSonus ATOM/ATOM SQ | Studio One | Reason | Bitwig Studio | Reaper | Renoise | FL Studio | ~900 VSTs | 300+ REs
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- KVRAF
- 35424 posts since 11 Apr, 2010 from Germany
Well... about 10 people...
- KVRist
- 235 posts since 11 Oct, 2012
Not really sure, many people are still on the fence, wait for better deals and options or don't understand the revolutionary benefits, bridging the worlds of digital sound design and traditional expressive instruments.starflakeprj wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 4:02 pm I can count around 7-10 people continuesly asking for MPE support (same people every time) in all plugins and DAWs in the KVR forum, so I wonder how high the demand really is.
At the same time, over 2000 LinnStruments have been sold according to the website (http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument.html) and I can only imagine that the number is even higher for the cheaper Seaboard blocks and some other controllers. So yes, the market is still small, but it's growing. In my experience, nobody who plays an MPE controller for more than a few minutes wants to go back to simple old-fashioned controllers.
Some music with visuals and mixed tutorials related to game dev and sound design: https://www.youtube.com/@MetasideOfficial
- KVRAF
- 2338 posts since 28 Feb, 2015
I see a certain similarity with people using Linux wanting all software ported to Linux, when the desktop market of Linux is still around 2%.
i9-10900K | 128GB DDR4 | RTX 3090 | Arturia AudioFuse/KeyLab mkII/SparkLE | PreSonus ATOM/ATOM SQ | Studio One | Reason | Bitwig Studio | Reaper | Renoise | FL Studio | ~900 VSTs | 300+ REs
- KVRAF
- 2338 posts since 28 Feb, 2015
- KVRist
- 235 posts since 11 Oct, 2012
Yeah, but can you do anything revolutionary with a Linux port of a Win program that you can't do with the Win version? Investing in MPE is investing in expressiveness in electronic music.starflakeprj wrote: ↑Wed Aug 21, 2019 4:36 pm I see a certain similarity with people using Linux wanting all software ported to Linux, when the desktop market of Linux is still around 2%.
Some music with visuals and mixed tutorials related to game dev and sound design: https://www.youtube.com/@MetasideOfficial