Upcoming Synapse OB-Xa: Obsession

[Vortifex]

That's because you're underlying assumption is incorrect. The primary purpose of a Roli Seaboard is to offer their 5 Dimensions of Touch. That's the headline, MPE is just a minor consideration. I don't even have it switched on most of the time. The Seaboard Block is my favourite keyboard to play, ever. I just prefer it to a normal keyboard. Even if it didn't do the 5D thing, I'd probably still want one, although I wouldn't have been willing to pay as much without the 5D.

Which you can achieve with velocity which, again, has been around forever. MPE brings only incremental improvement, whereas 5D is a revolution.

I don't actually think you believe what you are saying, you are just trolling. Is it so important to you to be contrarian that you are willing to say something so obviously untrue?

You are arguing with the guy who said that Valhalla plugin fonts were tiny and barely legible on his screen despite never even having demoed them. Half of his posts are troll posts but it's tolerated so..

[wagtunes]

That's because you're underlying assumption is incorrect. The primary purpose of a Roli Seaboard is to offer their 5 Dimensions of Touch. That's the headline, MPE is just a minor consideration. I don't even have it switched on most of the time. The Seaboard Block is my favourite keyboard to play, ever. I just prefer it to a normal keyboard. Even if it didn't do the 5D thing, I'd probably still want one, although I wouldn't have been willing to pay as much without the 5D.

Which you can achieve with velocity which, again, has been around forever. MPE brings only incremental improvement, whereas 5D is a revolution.

I don't actually think you believe what you are saying, you are just trolling. Is it so important to you to be contrarian that you are willing to say something so obviously untrue?

You are arguing with the guy who said that Valhalla plugin fonts were tiny and barely legible on his screen despite never even having demoed them. Half of his posts are troll posts but it's tolerated so..

Wait, Valhalla fonts are tiny? I'm nearly blind in one eye and can see Valhalla plugins (some of my favorite) crystal clear.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Yeh, I just got an email yesterday from Expressive E showing the final design of 'Osmose'. Its a thing of beauty in my opinion and I think it may take MPE more mainstream being both stand alone and accessible to traditional keyboard players.

That basically looks like everything I wanted the Roli to be. In my experience, the Roli membrane is a bit weird. Having a lot of those same MPE features (and more) in a more traditional keyboard setup seems more appealing to me. Though, I think the Roli would still be better for large polyphonic pitch bends, so both could have their place.

[starflakeprj]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93nDGqSSZ_A

In the first 10 seconds of this videos, he's already done things that you can't do in a split keyboard non-MPE setup on a "5D" controller. Examples like these are all over youtube. Again - Willful ignorance.

I have never really understood the greatness in MPE, but it could be because I don't really understand how I could gain from it.

In this linked above, can you still accomplish the same sound "manually" in your DAW? What I'm asking specifically is, if MPE is mostly for playing live? In that case it's not for me

[Spencer Maddox]

Edit: wrong thread.

[perpetual3]

That's because you're underlying assumption is incorrect. The primary purpose of a Roli Seaboard is to offer their 5 Dimensions of Touch. That's the headline, MPE is just a minor consideration. I don't even have it switched on most of the time. The Seaboard Block is my favourite keyboard to play, ever. I just prefer it to a normal keyboard. Even if it didn't do the 5D thing, I'd probably still want one, although I wouldn't have been willing to pay as much without the 5D.

Which you can achieve with velocity which, again, has been around forever. MPE brings only incremental improvement, whereas 5D is a revolution.

I don't actually think you believe what you are saying, you are just trolling. Is it so important to you to be contrarian that you are willing to say something so obviously untrue?

You are arguing with the guy who said that Valhalla plugin fonts were tiny and barely legible on his screen despite never even having demoed them. Half of his posts are troll posts but it's tolerated so..

I’ve seen people banned for way less.

[Echoes in the Attic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93nDGqSSZ_A

In the first 10 seconds of this videos, he's already done things that you can't do in a split keyboard non-MPE setup on a "5D" controller. Examples like these are all over youtube. Again - Willful ignorance.

I have never really understood the greatness in MPE, but it could be because I don't really understand how I could gain from it.

In this linked above, can you still accomplish the same sound "manually" in your DAW? What I'm asking specifically is, if MPE is mostly for playing live? In that case it's not for me

Yes you could accomplish the same thing technically in a DAW, however it would be extremely cumbersome. You would need to create a duplicate instrument track for each voice that is played simultaneously so that you can do pitch bend or other expressions (like mod wheel or other midi cc) for only that specific note at a time. For example in the first few seconds you can see that he does vibrato on one note while holding other notes that do not to vibrato. It would sound much different and less pleasing if vibrato were applied to all notes there. So yes you could set it up in a DAW that way but then of course you would need to play or write each note separately. Imagine recording guitar parts where you could only record one string at a time as opposed to playing chords.

So yes MPE is geared mostly towards playing as opposed to writing/sequencing notes. It's made to give keyboards/electronic instruments the types of expressions you can get our of natural instruments in a way, at least that's one way to look at it. But of course when you record MPE as midi you can then edit the midi per note, which is beneficial over recording audio, like you would with a guitar. And of course even if you only write notes into a midi editor, it can still be useful. For example many dance music producers write chords into the midi editor rather than playing them on a keyboard. You could manually add pitch bends of expressions for individual notes within a chord, giving you a freedom in writing the voice spread that isn't possible for most synths, even ones that do have functions to modulate spread values of parameters per voice. Another way to think about it is that where you might normally need to assign an envelope or lfo to control modulation of each note (let's say the filter cutoff as an example), MPE expressions let you do that manually so you are playing (or writing) that expression rather than an envelope or lfo doing it automatically for you, meaning you have full control of it in automation over time.

[zvenx]

So, I am thinking Next Week the latest with an Intro Price of $99.
rsp

[Vortifex]

So, I am thinking Next Week the latest with an Intro Price of $99.
rsp

I like your thinking and hope you are right.

[zvenx]

lol. I hope so too
Based on at least two Beta uses comments about "competitive" and one said surprised by it and users will be too (paraphrasing), I went with $99 not $129-$149 as was the general guessing before.

and very soon and soon hopefully means like really soon
rsp

[BONES]

5D is simply 5 midi expressions at the same time, nothing new.

No, that's not what it is at all. You can't have STRIKE and LIFT at the same time, or STRIKE and GLIDE or GLIDE and LIFT. They are basically sequential.

The thing that is new about it is that it is per key. The entire point was to make these expressions independent per key. Everyone knows this.

That must be why Roli don't bother to mention it anywhere on the main Seaboard page of their website. But don't take my word for it, here's what they have to say -

Where on Earth would you get the idea that "MPE is just a minor consideration".

Maybe from having owned MPE capable hardware and software for more than two years, after 36 or so years without. Whilst 5D touch was a revelation, I am still trying to find a use for MPE, but every example I have seen does little to convince me it has much value at all.

Is this something you have learned from Roli? Or Roger Linn? Of course not, it something you just made up.

If anyone is making stuff up, pal, it ain't me.

Do you think it is a minor consideration for the whole world because you do not have ability to understand how to use it, whereas many others have shown it's usefulness on countless youtube videos?

Not on any of the dozens I've seen. Quite the opposite, most of them have to find some non-musical way of showing how it works. As I've said several times already, if it is so useful why hasn't polyphonic aftertouch been ubiquitous since it appeared on the CS-80 in 1977? Why has it remained such a rare feature if it is such an essential, amazing thing?

I don't actually think you believe what you are saying, you are just trolling.

That simply shows how completely closed your mind is to new or different ideas, that you would assume that anyone who didn't see things the way you do was being deliberately contrarian.

You are telling someone that their underlying assumption is false about the primary purpose being MPE when they are correct about that.

Clearly Roli doesn't think so, or do you think they are deliberately underplaying it because they want to sell fewer Seaboards? So it must be at least Roli and me, which is good company to be in.

And you have nothing at all on which to base your wild claim that it was a minor consideration.

The proof is there for anyone to see, all it takes is a modicum of objectivity.

You can not speak for those who design MPE instruments and what their major and minor considerations were. They themselves have made it quite clear that MPE was the main consideration, you don't get to change that because you don't like it.

No they haven't, as I have shown. Maybe there was a time when they thought MPE might be a big selling point but that doesn't seem to be the case today, which fits exactly my own experience.

[revvy]

Comes with Bitwig. Stoked!

We need a poll on prospective Obsession price. Guessing $99 here.

[Vortifex]

lol. I hope so too
Based on at least two Beta uses comments about "competitive" and one said surprised by it and users will be too (paraphrasing), I went with $99 not $129-$149 as was the general guessing before.

and very soon and soon hopefully means like really soon
rsp

I just read this post by them on Facebook:

"We are working very hard on it, final Release Candidate is being tested now. Hard to give an exact date, but no more than a few weeks we believe"

[zvenx]

lol. I hope so too
Based on at least two Beta uses comments about "competitive" and one said surprised by it and users will be too (paraphrasing), I went with $99 not $129-$149 as was the general guessing before.

and very soon and soon hopefully means like really soon
rsp

I just read this post by them on Facebook:

"We are working very hard on it, final Release Candidate is being tested now. Hard to give an exact date, but no more than a few weeks we believe"

Ahhh....so definitely not this week and next week looks iffy, but hopefully the week after that.
thanks for the update.
rsp

[Echoes in the Attic]

5D is simply 5 midi expressions at the same time, nothing new.

No, that's not what it is at all. You can't have STRIKE and LIFT at the same time, or STRIKE and GLIDE or GLIDE and LIFT. They are basically sequential.

Obviously. Velocity and release are different stages of notes being played, so not strictly simultaneous but these expressions are active at the same time for different notes. That is beside the point. Velocity and release velocity already existed as well, they are not new or "revolutionary". Same with polyphonic aftertouch. It was up to controllers to allow for these if they wanted to. The reason they were able to add these extra 2 expressions (pitch and timbre/cc74 per note) is because they came up with a way to them independently per channel. Without that, it would not make sense. Why? Because the midi spec as it was did not allow for that. Pitch bend is per channel. Can't have pitch bend triggered from an individual note without the ability to have the messages send separately per note or else there would be constant conflicts between pitch bend signals detected at different notes. Same for cc74/timbre. Therefor the additional possibilities of 5D over regular midi are enabled by the MPE protocol.

5D is simply 5 midi expressions at the same time, nothing new.

No, that's not what it is at all. You can't have STRIKE and LIFT at the same time, or STRIKE and GLIDE or GLIDE and LIFT. They are basically sequential.

The thing that is new about it is that it is per key. The entire point was to make these expressions independent per key. Everyone knows this.

That must be why Roli don't bother to mention it anywhere on the main Seaboard page of their website. But don't take my word for it, here's what they have to say -

Where on Earth would you get the idea that "MPE is just a minor consideration".

Maybe from having owned MPE capable hardware and software for more than two years, after 36 or so years without. Whilst 5D touch was a revelation, I am still trying to find a use for MPE, but every example I have seen does little to convince me it has much value at all.

Is this something you have learned from Roli? Or Roger Linn? Of course not, it something you just made up.

If anyone is making stuff up, pal, it ain't me.

Do you think it is a minor consideration for the whole world because you do not have ability to understand how to use it, whereas many others have shown it's usefulness on countless youtube videos?

Not on any of the dozens I've seen. Quite the opposite, most of them have to find some non-musical way of showing how it works. As I've said several times already, if it is so useful why hasn't polyphonic aftertouch been ubiquitous since it appeared on the CS-80 in 1977? Why has it remained such a rare feature if it is such an essential, amazing thing?

I don't actually think you believe what you are saying, you are just trolling.

That simply shows how completely closed your mind is to new or different ideas, that you would assume that anyone who didn't see things the way you do was being deliberately contrarian.

You are telling someone that their underlying assumption is false about the primary purpose being MPE when they are correct about that.

Clearly Roli doesn't think so, or do you think they are deliberately underplaying it because they want to sell fewer Seaboards? So it must be at least Roli and me, which is good company to be in.

And you have nothing at all on which to base your wild claim that it was a minor consideration.

The proof is there for anyone to see, all it takes is a modicum of objectivity.

You can not speak for those who design MPE instruments and what their major and minor considerations were. They themselves have made it quite clear that MPE was the main consideration, you don't get to change that because you don't like it.

No they haven't, as I have shown. Maybe there was a time when they thought MPE might be a big selling point but that doesn't seem to be the case today, which fits exactly my own experience.

MPE is the generic underlying protocol for their 5D. 5D is the term they have given to the expressions that work on top of MPE. The ability to do independent expression is assumed within the 5D marketing as it is based on MPE. Do you think they would have invented a 5D controller without bothering to have a method to have separate expressions per note? No. In fact the first seaboard had only poly aftertouch and independent pitch bend per voice. The reason it was revolutionary was not because there were 3 dimensions (along with poly aftertouch and velocity), it was because it could have independent vibrato and pitch bend per note. This was the big deal and separating notes by midi channel allowed this. 5D came later was just adding release velocity and Y axis movement. I watched it all happen very closely, even sent a suggestion after the first seaboard was released that they add an up/down expression (not saying they did because of me).

I am not closed minded to different ways of thinking. You are simply saying things that ore objectively not true. You emphasize on 5 dimensions of expression over MPE is backwards. It's fine for you to not care about polyphony, but the bigger focus was on allowing independent expressions per note. And then the number 5 came after. And also, having separate expressions per note isn't just useful for polyphonic sounds, it is also crucial for many types of monophonic sounds where when you do a bunch of expressions, lets say a pitch bend of a few notes, and instantly play a new note on and off repeatedly while holding the other note, it preserves the bend pitch and expression of the two notes independently even though just one is being heard at a time.

The fact that you can't find a use for MPE just tells me you have an extremely limited playing technique with these things. And again that's absolutely fine, but you should understand that most other people don't have this limitation so it just isn't correct to say that there isn't uses for it, when lots of other people do find it useful. This has been shown in videos that you ignore.

Another basic example bending one note and not another (at 17 seconds). This is basic technique, equally useful for synths as guitar sounds:
https://youtu.be/IXstNdIEGPw?t=17