erae touch, linnstrument, (rise 2?) etc

[pdxindy]

My Osmose should arrive in the next couple of weeks, I think I’ll sell Linnstrument if that works out to be a complete MPE solution. Good times

The Osmose is very far from being complete in terms of MPE. One dimension is missing completely, but it adds a lot to a standard keyboard and for keyboardists its something for feeling at home without learning a new instrument.
I was thinking I need to get one, but after I touched a real one at SuperBooth, I dropped that idea. I rather learn my LinnStrument deeper…

My Osmose arrived and I've had the chance to play it for a couple hours. It and the Linnstrument are complementary. There really isn't much overlap between the two except the concept of constant control of notes on a per note basis.

[Tj Shredder]

Yes, two completely different instrument controllers. If I would want a keyboard in the studio, it would be the Osmose, or a Yamaha Disklavier with Touchkeys…
https://touchkeys.co.uk/ but thats a different price range…

[pdxindy]

Touchkeys are cool... but they are still regular keys for the on/off... nothing like the gorgeous nuances of Osmose initial sound. Playing the Osmose is fantastic!

I suppose you could put touch keys on the Osmose to give you the Y axis! hehehe

[funktree]

My Osmose should arrive in the next couple of weeks, I think I’ll sell Linnstrument if that works out to be a complete MPE solution. Good times

My Osmose should be here soon too.

No way I would ever sell my Linnstrument. There is too much useful stuff it does that Osmose doesn't.

Same here, Linn will stay but Osmose guys never asked for the rest of the money, I suppose I'm in a later batch ?

...And The Roli blocks are sitting next to me, (trying to turn them into some useful MIDI controller.. I wonder how much in-common is erae with Roli blocks ? Someone left roli and created Erae ? Too much resemblance

[Kalamata Kid]

I primarily use my multi-touch monitor as a keyboard.
I use Xotopad and just recently also got DAWsound.
I will pass on the current Erae, Roli,, Osmose and Linnstrument.
However the next keyboard technology could motivate me to buy into it.

[zerocrossing]

I can’t speak to the Rise 2, but I have the original and I still love it. The only other one from your list that I’ve tried is the Linnstrument, and even though I’m a guitarist, I felt it was awkward playing chords, and the pads were pretty small. I’m sure I’d get used to it in time, but I got the feeling that to become proficient on it was more work and skill. Since I’m bouncing around between guitar, bass, regular keyboard (which I still feel is better for some types of sounds) and an MPE controller, I stuck with the Rise, because it just seems easier to maintain my mediocre level on it.

[Tj Shredder]

I always found playing chords on keyboards awkward. Different shapes for different keys… And I use the tritone layout which makes the shapes much less awkward… As there are no open strings and no barré fingering, there is no advantage for the 4th tuning, to the contrary, 4th are easier to play on the tritone layout. And muscle memory between my Bass and my LinnStrument is completely different as well. It doesn‘t interfere for me, as my hand position is also completely different…

...And The Roli blocks are sitting next to me, (trying to turn them into some useful MIDI controller.. I wonder how much in-common is erae with Roli blocks ? Someone left roli and created Erae ? Too much resemblance

Roli Block vs. Erae Touch, is like a toy piano vs. a Steinway grand. But as a companion to the Linnstrument to mimic the pad of a Seaboard its useful…

[funktree]

TJ I'm fully with you, I hate to go trough extra muscle/brain power to lay chords on keyboard. But chords on grid controllers is a different animal. I'm still struggling which layout to use on Medusa (synth)... Imitation of 4th coming from guitar to Linn/LaunchPadPro/Push/Medusa is close to my satisfaction. I'm flipping between octave setting (7th) or guitar (4th) settings on all of these (besides Linn that cannot do octave layout). BTW the octave layout gives me more than 3 octaves range on a typical 8x8 grid.

However, there is something irreplaceable when it comes to playing chords on a keyboard that is part of "tactile feedback". The black keys allow you to "feel" the finger placement, thus use less optical feedback while laying chords. ..eg: Are my fingers on the right spots?
I cannot achieve this "tactile feedback" on linnstrument. I ALWAYS need a visual feedback of my fingers if I need to play a chord on linn. However, Soloing on linn is different, the muscle is "easier" to train there, but that is another topic.

Raising the "switches/pads" helps but ultimately you need "tactile coordinates". Example: Linn could have raised "the root pad" in each row for 4th layout. That would give me "map" for fingers position...
The other controllers have same issue with evenly raised 8x8 pads. No other way to hold your fingers in place. The Roli RISE has solved this so did Osmose by keeping keyboard approach as a tactile map for fingers' default placement.

Guitar Neck is a different animal. Muscle memory works perfect on a guitar neck. The strings are so close to each other, so the chords become just different hand gestures. Playing for years create a muscle memory so you stop looking at the neck to "order/place" fingers for chords ... The same goes with playing chords on keyboards. The feedback from raised black keys for fingers is a paramount. So eyes/visual can exercise another aspect of a performance.

I've clocked years and years of playing on keys and neck.... but only a few years with grid controllers push/linn/launchpadpro. The new Launchpad pro is pretty sensitive, and love that I can to MIDI CCs while performing as I can do with Linn(still the best for me)


I'm also on wait list for Soma/Terra. Vlad is genius and he put "soul" into Terra that follows my rant here. I don't even have one and already know that performing LIVE with Terra will be a challenge as it is with Linnstrument. Remember portable / strip-able keyboards of 80's ?

Soloing is a totally different animal and will not bore with a few more paragraph about it.


To wrap this up:

We're long way out to experience an electronic expressive controller/new instrument that will be MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL. It might be blend of all above with some help of AI that will learn and help with our muscle memory with built in sound engine perhaps ? Until then we experience more "pioneers" coming to market, more deep pocket $$$ to cover our lust for new controllers, while doing our drills on keyboards and guitar necks. Heck, They've been here for centuries and frankly inventor(s) nailed it

[zerocrossing]

We're long way out to experience an electronic expressive controller/new instrument that will be MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL.

Will that ever happen? Not until someone like Taylor Swift starts putting it in their videos and live performances. Seems unlikely, but weirder things have happened. Regular keyboard playing is on the decline, so it’s hard to see that specialty instruments become “massively successful.” I’m surprised we’re even here, to be honest. I’m pretty close to being perfectly happy with my Rise 49 and GEM S2. What I think would make it perfect would be a Rise 2 and something like a 61 key Osmose. I don’t spend much energy thinking about that, but that’s what would be massively successful to me.

[pdxindy]

We're long way out to experience an electronic expressive controller/new instrument that will be MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL.

It's a niche market. Most people these days don't even play a keyboard. Notes are more often input by mouse or pad based sequencer. An expressive instrument requires some skill to master and it is more niche than ever.

I have no interest for a controller to be massively successful. If it were, it would not be catering to my interests. I just want gear like the Linnstrument and Osmose and Erae Touch to be successful enough for them to comfortably stay in business.

[BONES]

...And The Roli blocks are sitting next to me, (trying to turn them into some useful MIDI controller.. I wonder how much in-common is erae with Roli blocks ? Someone left roli and created Erae ? Too much resemblance

Not that different, really. The Erae's surface is a lot harder so the way you play it is a bit different. Lightpad Blocks are great, still the "keyboard" I use when I'm working. The Erae's strength is in it's flexibility. You can have big keys or small keys, big pads or small pads, and you can lay them out however you like. I find the pads on the Lightpad Block just a little bit too small so I prefer using the Erae when I'm actually playing, but the experience isn't really all that different overall.

TJ I'm fully with you, I hate to go trough extra muscle/brain power to lay chords on keyboard. But chords on grid controllers is a different animal.

That's just about what you're used to because I'm 100% the opposite. The grid on my Lightpad Blocks still does my head in , after more than two years of daily use. I still have to count up the pads to work out where the next A or F is, it completely does my head in.

[killmaster]

It would be really good to know what advantages MIDI 2.0 has with the Erae Touch? Someone mentioned that the Linnstrument has higher resolution, which I take means more discreet increments in your movement so small movements can be smoother. Is that correct? If the MIDI 2.0 spec allows much greater resolution, does that mean that the Erae Touch would allow for higher resolution movements? If so, that would cinch the deal for me. I guess the hardware would have had to be designed to take advantage of higher resolutions so I wonder if the Touch was designed for MIDI 2.0 from the beginning and wether the hardware allows for the full MIDI 2.0 specs?

[Tj Shredder]

We don‘t have DAWs yet which support Midi 2.0, and the resolution of the Erae is much less than that of the LinnStrument. Maybe the pressure is more precise than Midi 1.0 (127), but x/y resolution is limited… The resolution of the Sensel Morph is great, but they stopped to make it…:-(

[neverbefore]

I have no experience wit Linnstrument but I own or have owned Roli Seaboards, Lightpads and an Erae Touch. I'd take the Erae over the Roli stuff every time. I find it works in a much more natural way than the Rolis, although that could just be because I had the Rolis first, so had more trouble adapting. But I think it's just better.

There are two Roli Lightpad Blocks. The original feels a lot closer to the Erae than the newer Lightpad M or Lightpad Studio, in that its surface has a lot less give. You'd think that might make it less responsive or harder to play but it's actually the opposite.

You mentioned limited Y travel on the Erae but this is where custom set-ups come into their own. You can make a keyboard that's as deep as the device, giving you more Y travel than any other controller I can think of. For me, I think customisation has been an important part of why I like it so much. You can make the keys whatever size works best for you and add in other controls where it best suits you. e.g. You can have a full width keyboard with an X-Y pad above it or a shorter keyboard with two sliders for pitch-bend and Mod wheel or whatever else you want to do at one end or the other.

dragging this up as I am starting to look around
I have the Roli M block and it works well enough but I would much rather something that required far less pressure. Basically I want something that will respond to very light touch. Is the Erae better than the M as far as that goes? For example I would like to be able to draw melodic contours with a finger and map that to the midi pitch range as easily as I could do that on say a table top. The M block requires too much pressure to do that easily, how would the Erae go with that task?