What's on your Black Friday radar?

[nanostream]

On my radar: walls of text by ivybirds, unfortunately.

I’ve upgraded Arturia‘s FX bundle to v5, and got the latest stuff from Fors. The best plugin (m4l) is their new and free Retur, though, at least I’ve had tons of fun with it. Go get it, if you’re on Live Suite!

[martinjuenke]

And yet you are seem to be unaware that the new Montage M 8X generates Polyphonic aftertouch which can be used with MPE. Something your older Montage 8 can't do. You also seem ignorant to the fact that using Cubase and HALion7 you can do all kinds of things with MPE and use the new Montage M8x to play and build sequences with it

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There are 128 available notes to play in the MIDI spec. Yet pretty much every controller only has 88 keys or less. Does that mean you are not playing music if you don't engage all 128 available notes in your compositions? Or does that mean you are not you are not playing a MIDI keyboard if you only have 88 keys or less on your controller? Of course not

There are 128 possible CC controls available in the MIDI spec. Yet many controllers only have the controls to utilize a few dozen at most, and most synth patches also only utilize a few dozen at most. Does that mean that unless you are using all 128 patches in every patch you are not utilizing MIDI CC in your productions? Of course not

The MIDI spec also includes extensions. The MIDI extension for MPE allows for each keypress to send completely independent pitch bend and CC data in addition to standard note on/off and velocity messages. By using a separate MIDI channel for each subsequent note, the pitch bend/CC values associated with one note do not affect the next. Since all you are doing for MPE is generating per note MIDI CC Values on separate channels, it doesn't matter how many you generate or how they are generated

All you are doing is sending CC values along with note on and off values and velocity data for each note

How you generate that CC value is up to you. You can use a keyboard with Polyphonic Aftertouch to generate those CC values and you are using MPE. Just like you are utilizing standard Chanel MIDI CCs if you only use a few knobs on your controller

There are of course a few nonstandard MIDI controllers that allow for multiple ways to generate per note MIDI CC data besides just poly aftertouch and if you want to utilize them fantastic.

But the idea that unless you are doing so, you are not using MPE is just ignorant on many levels, just like the idea that unless you are using a keyboard with 128 keys you are not using a MIDI keyboard would be ignorant, just like the idea that unless your controller has 128 knobs to adjust 128 MIDI CCs and you have all 128 values going at once you are not using MIDI CCs is ignorant

But prove me wrong, the MIDI standard includes channel aftertouch for MIDI keyboards as a method to generate CCs

The majority of MIDI Controller Keyboards and Hardware Synths do not include Channel Aftertouch. Make the argument that unless your controller has Channel Aftertouch that it's just not a MIDI controller

The reality is that the moment a piece of hardware generates any data of any kind, data that is MPE based per note data, it's a MPE enabled device

But again prove me wrong

Please stop polluting this thread.
Open another for your mission.
Thanks!

[martinjuenke]

...
The reality is that the moment a piece of hardware generates any data of any kind, data that is MPE based per note data, it's a MPE enabled device

But again prove me wrong

Poly-AT messages are different to the MIDI CCs used by MPE: each one is associated with a MIDI key number and has the same format as a MIDI key-on message, just a different status byte. Poly-AT just happens to achieve the same end as an MPE Z signal, but that uses regular channel-aftertouch messages which are not linked to keys, just the channel associated with a particular MIDI key-on event.

In principle, you can mash your arms on a keyboard and get individual aftertouch messages for each note whereas MPE will top out at 15 because it runs out of channels.

Wow you have figured out that MPE has limitations, in particular how in MPE Channel 1 is reserved for global parameters: parameters that will affect all notes. This leaves 15 channels available. That means that you could play 15 notes at once, all with their own string of data.

So if you have a keyboard controller that has PolyAT you can decide how you want to use that data in your MIDI stream. Either approach is after all just standard MIDI data and CCs.

You will notice I have repeatedly talked about using a DAW in my case Cubase Pro 14, along with a MPE capable plugin in this case since we are talking about using MPE with the DX7 sound engine I referred to HALion7 which in FM Zone can apply any MPE data you want to modulate the DX7 engine

So I can play using Poly AT and then send MPE data to the plugin using Cubase.

I don't need to use ANY keyboard in reality to use MPE, I can just draw it in with a mouse it I want to

The main issue here is far to many people become MPE zealots and want to define what MPE is and does based on what they want to do

The reality is that MPE is just MIDI 1.0 and all it's doing is assigning CC values to note on messages. Each bite is using a different MIDI channel. To use the actual MPE specification no controller is needed, you can use any sequencer to do MPE that supports it

I use MIDI polyphonic expressions a lot in my FM sound design. If I want to I can use MPE with the exact engine and sound if the original DX7 using Plogue Ops7 which is usually on sale for Black Friday

However if you are going to actually use MPE to modulate various FM synth properties FM-X inside of HALion7 is a far better choice as you have FAR more options to modulate as you play it sequence with FM-X over the 40+ year old DX7 engine

But obviously it's not about using MPE with Synthesizers in hardware or software to generate sounds, for the zealots it comes down to controllers, you have to have a controller and play live, God forbid you use a sequencer or a DAW to generate and use CC data on a per note basis using MPE. If you do that you are a heretic who should be burned at the stake or something.

Fortunately MIDI 2.0 eliminates the need for any of this

Just stop it please!

[GGaudio7]

Waiting for Fabfilter to start their BF sale, as their Pro-R 2 is on my radar ... & got Transgressor 3 in the meantime ... : )

[kritikon]

Cherry Audio Polyvoks thing + maybe their Jupiter6. Otherwise I've seen literally nothing in sw that tempts me for any kind of sale. Most sw FX seem to yet another compressor that has another 50-odd parameters that I'd never consider using, or variation on yet another channel console . I'll probably get Cubase14 but that won't be on sale yet, as it's only just been released.

[AdvancedFollower]

Might upgrade to Komplete 15 (from 14) if there's a good sale.

[billcarroll]

Might upgrade to Komplete 15 (from 14) if there's a good sale.

Native Instruments just started their Cyber Season sale. Upgrades to Komplete 15 are on sale now.

[Caine123]

Might upgrade to Komplete 15 (from 14) if there's a good sale.

Native Instruments just started their Cyber Season sale. Upgrades to Komplete 15 are on sale now.

sale on updates gonna be on summer of sound

[enCiphered]

Might upgrade to Komplete 15 (from 14) if there's a good sale.

Native Instruments just started their Cyber Season sale. Upgrades to Komplete 15 are on sale now.

What is the upgrade price from Komplete 14 CE to Komplete 15 CE for you guys? I don't see any price reduction when logged in. Doesn’t this usually drop from $499 to $249 in the summer sale?

[Caine123]

Might upgrade to Komplete 15 (from 14) if there's a good sale.

Native Instruments just started their Cyber Season sale. Upgrades to Komplete 15 are on sale now.

What is the upgrade price from Komplete 14 CE to Komplete 15 CE for you guys? I don't see any price reduction when logged in. Doesn’t this usually drop from $499 to $249 in the summer sale?

yes afaik

[AdvancedFollower]

Might upgrade to Komplete 15 (from 14) if there's a good sale.

Native Instruments just started their Cyber Season sale. Upgrades to Komplete 15 are on sale now.

sale on updates gonna be on summer of sound

Yep, still seeing €199 for the upgrade, which is €99 too much for me. I guess Komplete 15 is still too new, but I can wait

[stoopicus]

The only two purchases I am considering at this point are Stepic (will not go on sale at all), and UVI Orchestral Suite (to use in Falcon). So I guess I am hoping for a UVI soundware sale. It was not part of either the recent Falcon Expansion BOGO or the UVI Halloween sale that just ended. We'll see.

[enCiphered]

Stepic is already very affordably priced at €39, so it’s a great deal even without a Black Friday discount

[Caine123]

yes, jens is also awesome and fast with support. stepic is so much fun, dunno if there is any better sequencer yet.

[Gribs]

The update for Komplete Ultimate from 14 to 15 for me is still $399. I see sale prices on individual software products and controllers + Komplete, but not for the update.

My Black Friday list keeps expanding as sales on cool stuff keep being announced. I made a budget and am sticking to it, though. I also made some decisions on some things. For example, I was waiting for the Teletone sale but after a reevaluation decided that their stuff would only be useful to me if I was a composer with a tight timeline.

I want to buy that cool new wavetable filter thing from Kilohearts, too, but that isn’t on sale yet.