How many of you are getting the Osmose?

[ThomasHelzle]

But I'm not claiming that MPE+ is irrelevant! It was just a discussion where I was very keen to point out that I dont think the lack of MPE+ supporting synths is the reason why we havent seen great demos of the Osmose being used as a controller with other synths.

I think we all understood you the first time.

[magog]

I love all these demo videos - thank you Thomas.

All this theoretical assuming of what may or what may not be how relevant for this or that or who may do what is indeed becoming tedious.

Speaking purely for myself, I find this discussion interesting, not tedious. But then again, this is my first baby step into the MPE world, so I'm learning a lot of the concepts by reading through these long (speculative) discussions.

I have a feeling that Osmose is going to be disruptive to my workflow, so I'm trying to get ahead of that while I wait for it to arrive

What I'm seeing from the videos is that the Osmose is a "complete experience". There is very tight integration between the control surface and the sound design. EaganMatrix is too complicated for mere mortals to program (at the moment), so to compensate for that, it has really good preset management and macros.

All of that suits me really well - I've always been more into tweaking presets than designing my own patches. I think it will be super fun for performance.

But these days I do more recording than performance, and I have been In The Box for a very long time. I'm used to quickly recording 10 tracks of synths as MIDI without having to render anything or deal with sysex or patch changes. So I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to use the Osmose to the fullest in a multi-track recording project and get dozens of MPE-style tracks into a project.

Rendering audio from external synths in realtime for every track is a PITA. I mean, I'll probably use the Osmose's built in sounds for a few tracks in each project. But using it for every track adds up to a lot of rendering time.

Not every track in a project has to be MPE of course, but I still want to get the most out of the Osmose as a control surface for all those other non-Osmose tracks, so I'm looking for MPE(+) Virtual Instruments that will be a good match for it.

Maybe Haken Audio will make a VST version of Eagen Matrix some day?

[SteveElbows]

Not every track in a project has to be MPE of course, but I still want to get the most out of the Osmose as a control surface for all those other non-Osmose tracks, so I'm looking for MPE(+) Virtual Instruments that will be a good match for it.

Thanks for being kind about my posts.

It will probably take some time to find the right balance. There are quite a lot of synths these days which support MPE, but many of them come with few or no patches that actually make good use of MPE (apart from changing pitch). It will probably take a while to see which ones, if any, improve on this situation over time, which ones become Osmose favourites. I dont think there are very many people out there who sell MPE patches for synths yet either, and thats one of the areas where things like Roli Equator have had an advantage so far because a lot of the patches and add-on patch packs are MPE-centric. The extent to which some synth makers or patch makers may jump on board the Osmose train and take advantage of this era is unclear at this point.

Which DAW you use is also going to make a difference with some aspects of editing MPE midi. Which DAW do you use? If you have any favourite soft synths then feel free to mention them and I will try to describe what MPE support is like with those. In terms of you tweaking existing patches to make them use the Osmoses features a bit more, at the most basic level its similar to tweaking patches so that aftertouch does something useful in them. But thats still pretty basic starting point stuff, not really quite the same experience as what EaganMatrix patches give you.

[magog]

Which DAW do you use? If you have any favourite soft synths then feel free to mention them and I will try to describe what MPE support is like with those. In terms of you tweaking existing patches to make them use the Osmoses features a bit more, at the most basic level its similar to tweaking patches so that aftertouch does something useful in them. But thats still pretty basic starting point stuff, not really quite the same experience as what EaganMatrix patches give you.

I'm mostly using Logic these days. I am not really attached to any soft synths. I mostly use the built-in Logic synths, Arturia V Collection and (occasionally) Pigments.

It looks like there are at least a dozen good MPE virtual instruments out there: in addition to the ones mentioned in this thread there is also a list on the Expression E discord. I'm watching a bunch of youtube demos, but they all seem pretty capable. I think I'm just going to wait and see what they feel like when I get the Osmose. And you're right, the situation will only improve over time.

[magog]

This is the list of MPE software instruments posted on the Expression E discord:

https://airtable.com/shrEJaQcvhsrEID8y/ ... locks=hide

[SLiC]

They may be useful for all us Osmose owners - patches posed for EM Engine!

https://patchstorage.com/platform/eagan ... nV70ZK9ZXQ

[magog]

Well I got to play with an Osmose at my music store today, and it was a bit of a mixed experience.
It was a pretty noisy environment and I only had an hour, so I didn't really play with the sounds very much. Instead I focused on trying to get it to integrate with Logic. But in the end, I couldn't really get anything to work properly.

My main goals were:

• Get MPE record and playback working
• Figure out how to store program changes in Logic so that I can have more than one Osmose part in a song.

I set it up like a typical outboard synth using Logic's External Instrument plugin, with the signal flow like this (Local Control Off):

Osmose=>=[MIDI]=>=Logic=>=[MIDI]=>=Osmose Sound Engine=>=[Audio out]

When set up like this, none of the MPE expression controls worked. So I either need to figure out how to get Logic to handle to MPE properly, or maybe there's something I need to configure on the Osmose. However, frustratingly, the store had not yet updated the Osmose's firmware, so about half of the Osmose's configuration menus were missing. I also couldn't get audio to come into Logic via USB. Apparently there's a setting for that somewhere but I couldn't find it.

Getting Logic to store Osmose Patches was a bust as well. At one point, I managed to get everything into a state where I could record the knob changes from Osmose in Logic, but it was a mode where Logic wasn't handling the MPE properly. And then when I played back the MIDI knob change events from Logic, the Osmose did not respond to them.

I'll have a chance to go back in a couple of weeks and see if I get a little further.

[aMUSEd]

This is the list of MPE software instruments posted on the Expression E discord:

https://airtable.com/shrEJaQcvhsrEID8y/ ... locks=hide

Ironically it doesn't include their own

[ThomasHelzle]

Well I got to play with an Osmose at my music store today, and it was a bit of a mixed experience.
It was a pretty noisy environment and I only had an hour, so I didn't really play with the sounds very much. Instead I focused on trying to get it to integrate with Logic. But in the end, I couldn't really get anything to work properly.

My main goals were:

• Get MPE record and playback working
• Figure out how to store program changes in Logic so that I can have more than one Osmose part in a song.

I set it up like a typical outboard synth using Logic's External Instrument plugin, with the signal flow like this (Local Control Off):

Osmose=>=[MIDI]=>=Logic=>=[MIDI]=>=Osmose Sound Engine=>=[Audio out]

When set up like this, none of the MPE expression controls worked. So I either need to figure out how to get Logic to handle to MPE properly, or maybe there's something I need to configure on the Osmose. However, frustratingly, the store had not yet updated the Osmose's firmware, so about half of the Osmose's configuration menus were missing. I also couldn't get audio to come into Logic via USB. Apparently there's a setting for that somewhere but I couldn't find it.

Getting Logic to store Osmose Patches was a bust as well. At one point, I managed to get everything into a state where I could record the knob changes from Osmose in Logic, but it was a mode where Logic wasn't handling the MPE properly. And then when I played back the MIDI knob change events from Logic, the Osmose did not respond to them.

I'll have a chance to go back in a couple of weeks and see if I get a little further.

I would have highly recommended to just play the whole hour...

Cheers,

Tom

[SteveElbows]

Osmose=>=[MIDI]=>=Logic=>=[MIDI]=>=Osmose Sound Engine=>=[Audio out]

There are two MIDI interfaces present via the USB connection. You need to switch the Haken one on in Osmoses settings and then use that one (labelled as the 2nd MIDI port) for both input to Logic and sending back out from Logic (although I dont use Logic myself and havent tried to control Osmose from a DAW so there is always a chance I got some detail wrong in that description).

I also couldn't get audio to come into Logic via USB. Apparently there's a setting for that somewhere but I couldn't find it.

No, there is no digital audio output from the Osmose, you cannot get audio via the USB.

[magog]

I would have highly recommended to just play the whole hour...

Next time I will, if there isn't somebody loudly rehearsing their whole jazz piano set next to me!

Michael

[magog]

No, there is no digital audio output from the Osmose, you cannot get audio via the USB.

Oh you're right! I misinterpreted "Haken Audio Port" on this page
https://expressivee.happyfox.com/kb/art ... -computer/

Oops. Thank you!

[SLiC]

## Osmose Firmware v1.0.6 13/02/2023

### UI
- Fixed: Tags disappearing in bottom bar when navigating with buttons
- Fixed: Minor issues in preset filtering
- Improved: Behavior of Encoders
- Improved: Information displayed during update procedures
### Sensors
- Improved: Sensors' initialization and sanity checks
- Feature: Allow manual sensor reset from global settings
### Presets
- Fixed: Removed special characters “/” and “*” in user preset names to avoid issues with preset saving

[pdxindy]

Anyone in the US have a shipping notice yet?

I'm paid up and waiting for notification.

[pdxindy]

My Osmose has shipped! Estimated to arrive on Monday!