How many of you are getting the Osmose?

[pdxindy]

Ditto- Genuinely owned them all over the years, Osmose is the only one that does it for me (with the AERE Touch for percussion and to cover dedicated controller stuff) but we are not all the same so whatever works just use it! PS- you are also quote correct that nothing beats the guitar as the ultimate expressive instrument (well, maybe my fretless bass )

I love my Linnstrument... it is so incredibly versatile! One of the best bits of gear ever made! It is not in the least bit threatened by the imminent appearance of an Osmose. There is no question that the Osmose is significantly more precise and responsive to ones touch than either the Linnstrument or Rise. It was obvious from the first moment it was revealed and that is why I pre-ordered on day 1.

When the Osmose was first announced, I was excited by how responsive it was, but disappointed by the lack of single note pitch slides and no independent Y axis. What it does offer though, is something new that existing MPE controllers don't, so it is really good news that the field keeps developing. That is good for everyone interested in more expressive playing regardless of their favorite controller.

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, I can't get too hung up about MPE either.
Like I wrote before, next to the Osmose, I personally find a wind controller, even a simple one as the EWI USB, the most expressive thing ever when played with instruments like Respiro or the SWAM range. It's mono and has only the bite-thing in addition to the blow-sensor, but the latter makes all the difference for wind instruments.

Pretty much all acoustic instruments have a wide range of expression, even if they are limited in polyphony, bend-range or whatever. They still beat most electronic instruments in that area, so IMO reducing it to "features" alone is missing the point, it's more about how well things are integrated and what emerges as a whole and if it can stand on it's own feet.

And for me the Osmose is special since it follows it's own vision of an expressive instrument instead of just implementing some technical standard.

At the end of the day, the most important thing will always be, what individual musicians can and want to do with it and how much joy it brings to the person playing it.

Cheers,

Tom

[pdxindy]

And for me the Osmose is special since it follows it's own vision of an expressive instrument instead of just implementing some technical standard.

+1

Some people have called the pressure weighted portamento a hack... but I am keen to explore it because it is different in that it is not using a separate and different movement, but rather the same movement as playing the keys. In that sense, it is integrated and I can hear in some demos how it can be a natural part of playing that just happens. In that way, it has its own strength that is different from pitch slides on say the Linnstrument (which I use to musical advantage and would not give up).

Over on GearSpace, various users have suggested improvements to the pressure weighted portamento. I think with a bit of refinement it will be a fresh and capable new tool. It offers something single note pitch slides doesn't.

[zerocrossing]

And for me the Osmose is special since it follows it's own vision of an expressive instrument instead of just implementing some technical standard.

+1

Some people have called the pressure weighted portamento a hack... but I am keen to explore it because it is different in that it is not using a separate and different movement, but rather the same movement as playing the keys. In that sense, it is integrated and I can hear in some demos how it can be a natural part of playing that just happens. In that way, it has its own strength that is different from pitch slides on say the Linnstrument (which I use to musical advantage and would not give up).

Over on GearSpace, various users have suggested improvements to the pressure weighted portamento. I think with a bit of refinement it will be a fresh and capable new tool. It offers something single note pitch slides doesn't.

I’m the one who said “hack,” which was maybe a strong word with too much of a negative association, but it is a work-a-round of sorts to get around a physical limitation. I’m sure you can become proficient with it, like anything else, but you will never be able to bend a chord down with one hand while bending a note up with the other, like you can on most MPE controllers. Shame they patented it, because technically it could be implemented on any synth that responds to polyphonic aftertouch. There will never be as many Osmose owners as there are Hydrasynth owners, just due to the economics of it all. I don’t think fewer Osmoses would be sold if ASM was able to add this feature to the Hydrasynth.

[zerocrossing]

Yeah, I can't get too hung up about MPE either.
Like I wrote before, next to the Osmose, I personally find a wind controller, even a simple one as the EWI USB, the most expressive thing ever when played with instruments like Respiro or the SWAM range. It's mono and has only the bite-thing in addition to the blow-sensor, but the latter makes all the difference for wind instruments.

Pretty much all acoustic instruments have a wide range of expression, even if they are limited in polyphony, bend-range or whatever. They still beat most electronic instruments in that area, so IMO reducing it to "features" alone is missing the point, it's more about how well things are integrated and what emerges as a whole and if it can stand on it's own feet.

And for me the Osmose is special since it follows it's own vision of an expressive instrument instead of just implementing some technical standard.

At the end of the day, the most important thing will always be, what individual musicians can and want to do with it and how much joy it brings to the person playing it.

Cheers,

Tom

I agree with all that, and frankly find mimicking acoustic instruments using any MPE controller to be a bit of a necessary evil of sorts. I can get passable (to me) results from SWAM Cello, but I’m sure if I had an actual cello player do the part I’d be embarrassed at how far the software was, but I’m not about to buy and learn cello for the few times a year I want it. Alternatively, I almost always cringe when I hear something trying to do guitar, because I’m very intimate with playing one and knowing how it should sound. I think it’s much more interesting to explore very obviously “synth” sounds and just make do with decent sample libraries with good articulation options than try to “fake it.”

From what I’ve heard, I think the Osmose will be way better for hard attack style sounds than pretty much anything else on the market. Or even better for a mono lead or bass synth sound. I'm thinking of getting it for those duties alone, because if there’s one thing I can’t stand is a pitch or mod wheel. I’ve always hated them. I’ve learned to just rely on portamento, or assigning aftertouch to pitch, but that’s hard because it’s only a single direction and you can’t bend into a note.

So its “hack” is actually a selling point to me, because it solves a different problem: How do I do portamento with an aftertouch (not like Roli’s always-pressure) style keyboard and not have to touch a pitch wheel? Actually, I consider the Equator’s curve editor to be a hack that’s a work around for always-pressure.

I use hacks all the time in my world, so maybe that’s why I don’t see it as a necessary negative term. I’m dealing with a VR system with a lot of weird limits and there’s no transparency in objects, except for text objects, so I’ve learned to make things out of text. It’s a total hack, but the results look pretty good until you realize the translucent bat wings I made are mostly (s. Now that I think of it, the mod and pitch wheels are hacks to get around how they can’t do things the Osmose and other MPE controllers do. The world is full of little hacks.

[ThomasHelzle]

Well, in that case I'd say any kind of tool humans use is a "hack" and at that point the term - for me - cancels out like calling the sun warm or water wet...

I find playing a guitar not less of a "hack" (it's not exactly natural how you hold your hands, especially the left one) or any kind of wind instrument with levers etc.
Is overtone singing a hack of normal singing?

Rabbit hole if ever there was one...

But I fully agree: I never found any of the existing MPE controllers good for attack-based sounds, only ever liked them for pads and slower sounds, otherwise the additional axii are mostly wasted IMO and they just don't feel right to me for attack-based playing, I like a bit of give in that case.
And the Osmose with two staggered, distinct pressures is really great there.

I also do not like Mod-Wheel or Pitch-Wheel.
But I put the Mod-Wheel of the Osmose on the expression pedal and that is actually great to have.

So the thing that makes the Osmose special to me next to the pressures is exactly the "wiggle" - which is just amazingly natural and solves something that I found superbad in all synths, since there is nothing more unnatural than a sine-vibrato to my ears. And since you can set how far your "wiggle" will go, you can do guitar like bends sideways very well. But yeah, bending into a note needs some very deep skill there
That wiggle already covers 90% of my pitch-bend use, those tiny things that make music alive.

That I can't do large polyphonic bends is something I can live with, it's not something I can do well on any surface, I'd have to train like crazy for that and it's not my area of interest anyway.
And for monophonic or duophonic bends, I like the two-key solution they have, although for very slow and more elaborately moving sounds I'd still go for my modified Seaboard Block. The SWAM Cello plays pretty good on that for when bending is the main point (not trying to imitate "real" cello playing, I'm more interested in the sound as such and what I can do with it).

And next to a real wind controller, I find ALL key based controllers horrible for wind instruments.

So my hope actually is, that we will see a lot more variety in "MPE" or better just "expressive" controllers than we did so far, that is why I went into those longer explanations, since for me it's not about how many axii it has etc, but how well everything down to the texture of the keys etc. integrates and makes my body align with the gear.
Most controllers leave that out of the equation for my taste.

So yeah, let's see what the future brings, now that the doors are open, the tech is there and there are tons of VSTs to use the data...

Cheers,

Tom

[pdxindy]

I’m the one who said “hack,” which was maybe a strong word with too much of a negative association, but it is a work-a-round of sorts to get around a physical limitation.

Only if you are seeing the current MPE method of the Rise or Linnstrument etc., as the objective to reach.

I'm looking at the pressure weighted portamento as its own feature. Listening to some demos, I can hear that it has strengths and nuances that single note pitch slides don't. It's not a subset of what the Linnstrument can do. Each of them has a range of pitch possibilities that have some overlap and unique techniques the other cannot do.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I think the pitch bend and portamento covers 99% of what I'd want to do. Often times with the Seaboard or linnstrument, it's a either a mono voiced instrument or it's the upper range playing gliding notes for example over a held chord down lower. So that's easily split into two copies, one lead and one chords. There are times certainly where you want a polyphonic portamento so that's where linnstrument or can seaboard shine. But I think that's more rare.

The only thing I think is too bad is that there aren't two possible modulations that can happen independently of each other. For example on a seaboard you can have a small amount of pressure and use the slide to modulate independently of the pressure. so you could do more or less of one or the other. With the Osmose you must go through the full range of the initial pressure before getting to the aftertouch portion. I do think that's a very useful thing to have those two separate ranges, it's just that you can't for example trigger the aftertouch modulation without also having gone through the maximum initial pressure modulation range. So I just wish there was also one other modulation on the vertical range, like the seaboards, or more comparably, like touch keys. Perhaps they would work well together? Touch Keys also has a surface area modulation, which I think is super cool. Maybe they work great together!
https://touchkeys.co.uk/


On another note I do think that expressive e touche would be a great companion to Osmose for some additional global modulations.

[ThomasHelzle]

Yeah, a touchkeys style sensor would be my vision for Osmose 2 in addition to what's there now...

Sadly it doesn't seem that they spent any thought on people who have the Touché as well...

-------

Going through the presets ATM, it's a bit sad how many of them don't really use the Osmoses abilities at all and could be played just as well on any other old keyboard. That is a bit shocking after they had 3 years to work on that stuff.
For me personally it feels like 50% filler, 25% good but not very exciting things, 20% really good sounds that play well and 5% that really use the Osmose fully.

What I also find absolutely silly is, that the mod wheel/pedal is used for dull old auto-vibrato in what feels like half of the sounds.
Why on earth would I want that on this keyboard?

So we all can only hope, that some real sound geniuses will get their hands on it and master the Eagan Matrix.
ExpressiveE never struck me as especially good sound designers (from the soundsets that come with the Touché especially - we never found any sounds in there we really liked), so they could really use some help there...

Does Yuli Yolo have an Osmose? Would love to hear what he could do with it!

But when a sound is really good, it's still just as mind blowing as ever.

Cheers,

Tom

[Echoes in the Attic]

Yeah, a touchkeys style sensor would be my vision for Osmose 2 in addition to what's there now...

Sadly it doesn't seem that they spent any thought on people who have the Touché as well...

I don't think any thought needs to go into Touché for it to be useful since it's just a basic global modulator. So you can assign any modulation by midi cc. Although I guess having access to relative modulation as opposed to simple midi mapping isn't always a given. I'm spoiled having Bitwig and being used to their modulation system where it can be a relative offset to the current value, therefor it can work well with other modulations. The Lie software allows the same thing for plugins but I doubt it would work with Eagan matrix. I'm not even sure if Bitwig's modulators could work on external sound sources with their hardware focused devices. It requires knowing the current values of parameters constantly so maybe not. I don't use external synths so I haven't thought it through.

So maybe Touché would be really useful with the Osmose when using plugins but not so much when using the Eagan Matrix in Osmose? Not sure.

Edit: Actually, thinking about it more, I wonder if Eagan Matrix has allows custom cc modulators as mod sources in it's matrix? In that case Touché could be used to great effect with it.

[ThomasHelzle]

That is what I meant: Sure you can use it and sure you can control parameters with external CCs, but both devices being from the same company and very expressive, it would have been nice if they would have thought about it some more and offered some pre-made setting for it - if it was my company I would do that right away...
The Osmose has full Midi In/Out so it could have been done.
We haven't tried it yet though, still so much to explore with the Osmose itself...

[Echoes in the Attic]

That is what I meant: Sure you can use it and sure you can control parameters with external CCs, but both devices being from the same company and very expressive, it would have been nice if they would have thought about it some more and offered some pre-made setting for it - if it was my company I would do that right away...
The Osmose has full Midi In/Out so it could have been done.
We haven't tried it yet though, still so much to explore with the Osmose itself...

Oh I see what you mean! Yes I wasn't even thinking about the fact that they were made by the same company, duh! Now that you mention it, it is surprising they didn't for example make a few patches that could use both for example.

[pdxindy]

So we all can only hope, that some real sound geniuses will get their hands on it and master the Eagan Matrix.
ExpressiveE never struck me as especially good sound designers (from the soundsets that come with the Touché especially - we never found any sounds in there we really liked), so they could really use some help there...

Even the really excellent presets currently there may have come from Haken more than EE.

Yes, it would be great if some sound geniuses master the EaganMatrix. My biggest hope is that u-he does support MPE+ and then great sounds that shine with the Osmose do not depend only on the EaganMatrix.

An MPE+ Zebra 3 is an exciting concept!

And of course, for me in particular, an MPE+ Bazille!

[ThomasHelzle]

Indeed. So yeah, exciting times and early days.
I have too many other things on my plate ATM to dive into the matrix, it definitely isn't something one just opens and uses right away. Especially those modulation lanes are from a totally different planet than for instance the very intuitive Bitwig modulations. Extremely powerful but needs some serious nerding time.

Thankfully I don't feel any pressure about the whole thing, it's a great instrument as it is and everything else can come with time.

BTW. Today I also tried Cypher and that works pretty well out of the box, many of the 5D presets do things that make sense without changing them.

Cheers,

Tom

[BONES]

There is no question that the Osmose is significantly more precise and responsive to ones touch than either the Linnstrument or Rise.

I dunno about the Linnstrument but the Erae feels way more responsive than the Roli stuff, too. I'm not sure why, because the surface has a lot less give, but it just works better.

What it does offer though, is something new that existing MPE controllers don't

Which is... ?

so it is really good news that the field keeps developing. That is good for everyone interested in more expressive playing regardless of their favorite controller.

Absolutely and the less overlap, the broader the market will get so that, hopefully, nobody gets squeezed out.

Yeah, I can't get too hung up about MPE either...
... And for me the Osmose is special since it follows it's own vision of an expressive instrument instead of just implementing some technical standard.

I don't think any of the others are doing that. Roli, for example, have had to make their "5 dimensions of touch" work within the existing MIDI standard, it's not something explicitly enabled by MPE, nor do you need MPE to take advantage of it. In fact, I almost never run anything in MPE mode, yet I still get to use the 5D touch features.

Over on GearSpace, various users have suggested improvements to the pressure weighted portamento. I think with a bit of refinement it will be a fresh and capable new tool. It offers something single note pitch slides doesn't.

But you could probably set it up to use GLIDE instead of SLIDE to do Portamento so I don't see any advantage in what the Osmose does. I can also see why some might call it a hack, as it's a different way of achieving the same result. From the demos I've seen, it looks like the Osmose way could be very difficult to control. Definitely not the sort of thing you could manage whilst bouncing around on stage.