Truly Touch-Sensitive Synths

[george]

I have an Atruria MicroFreak, thats touch sensitive!

I also have an Osomse on order- that looks like it may be one of the most expressive keyboards available.

https://www.expressivee.com/discover-osmose

I checked the video and it seems incredible feature wise. Overkill for me but tons of skilled keyboard players must be very excited to get their hands on it.

[anomandaris1]

Cypher and Strobe come with very nice pre-mapped MPE programs.

MPE is really the greatest thing ever for leads, basslines, pads and sound effects/ambiences; still, for traditional accompaniment like chordal figures played on piano or synth chord stabs, simpler keyboard design will do the job better (there is no room for error with unintended pitch bending or sound transformation)

[jdoo]

Seems easy to leap to the assumption that you're asking about aftertouch? What you describe feels a little more geared towards velocity sensitivity not aftertouch. Big difference, and if your target is free/cheap synths - youre probably also limiting how much something like aftertouch (polyphonic or channel) is even implemented or available. Velocity sensitivity though - is low hanging fruit, and something you can find implemented in free/cheap stuff. "Truly Touch-Sensitive" without context though - is too open-ended imo.

Are there many? I'm hoping to find new ones. Sure, there are plenty that respond with a difference in volume or filter pitch, but I'm looking for something that responds like a piano or a guitar -- playing with a light touch and playing with a heavy touch gives very different sounds.

Other than weighty sample sets, Karplus-Strong synthesis, Pianoteq and the like, and FM linking the modulation index to velocity, there doesn't seem to be much. Most synths just seem to repeating the same waveform over and over, or play a sequence of waveforms that depends on how long a note has been playing, not on how the note was struck.

I guess I'm just looking for something more responsive and alive than what I tend to hear from other people, or am able to coax from my (very limited) collection of (free, cheap) synths.

Still, I dunno... people play harpsichords, organs, and bagpipes, and consider their limitations acceptable: maybe I'm just off base. Maybe I'm just an unregenerate elderly fan and player of acoustic instruments. (Well, I am that -- I've been on KVR longer than some people here have been alive! -- but I also like modular synths.)

Any advice? Do I just need to get better gear and learn to use it better? tia

[felis]

....i imagine corona isnt selling much at the moment...

Probably about as much as the Virus.

To the OP - it's all in the programming. Assigning velocity to different parameters is nice, and for me, release velocity is even nicer.
Then of course, like others mention, you have after touch, mod wheel, and if you're lucky, a touch strip, breath control input, and several other physical inputs.

[deastman]

Breath control is an often overlooked technique. It took me 35 years to finally get around to getting a breath controller (TEControl BBC2), and I’m wondering why I waited so long. That, especially combined with physical modeling instruments, yields performances which are incredibly nuanced and just as expressive as any of my MPE controllers, even when playing notes from a lowly Keystep.

[Jafo]

Good replies, all, and thanks! Mostly, I'm after velocity sensitivity, and more than just playing a waveform louder, and it looks like there are plenty of them. (As for MPE, aftertouch, breath controllers, and all that... it'll take a few decades to save my pennies, so they're not even remotely on my radar. Simplicity.)

[Meffy]

Getting expressive timbres often takes a little work on your part. If you like a preset but it's not as lively as you'd like, do some tweaking. Something as simple as assigning velocity to filter cutoff can put some expression into an otherwise plain-jane patch.

Get fancy with, for instance, Cypher2 or Minimonsta or Softube Modular and you can Get That Vangelis Sound. Better still, That Jafo Sound. (Easy to overdo it and end up with That Syrupy Sound instead.)

BTW, most keyboard controllers don't send polyphonic aftertouch, but many send mono aftertouch. Check your controller's manual or MIDI implementation chart.

[Mats Eriksson]

I have an Atruria MicroFreak, thats touch sensitive!

I also have an Osomse on order- that looks like it may be one of the most expressive keyboards available.

https://www.expressivee.com/discover-osmose

Good thing, but... before the Corona outbreak* , it was "promised" at late summer 2020. Now it's postpned to Winter 2020, and that means "not this side of winter 2020" but December 2020. What on earth can have entered the market too, competition, when that one finally arrives. Count me out from all kickstarter, crowdfunding, and hefty deposits and pre-order. I also have problems with NAMM when they flaunt their products but has yet to hit the market. It's in the stores at the time of next NAMM. I could live with - at most - a month and a half...

*EDIT = the actual virus, not the virtual dsp synth.

[anomandaris1]

Good thing, but... before the Corona outbreak, it was "promised" at late summer 2020. Now it's postpned to Winter 2020, and that means "not this side of winter 2020" but December 2020. What on earth can have entered the market too, competition, when that one finally arrives. Count me out from all kickstarter, crowdfunding, and hefty deposits and pre-order.

Corona may be the start of new global recession, so your example is not very good. I have ordered some stuff like a month ago (that I suspect won't come anytime soon, because supply chains are disrupted).

[Mats Eriksson]

Well the Osmose postpone was made earlier and not due to the actual consequenses of the virus. Regardless of that, now one can see how much "early birds" or crowdfunding or kickstarter really turns out. Me myself would rather spend that money now on other things. I've heard that you actually can do a full refund of the deposit. Not sure about this though. I just wonder if all this with deposits, pre-order, kickstarter, crowdfunding makes sense in the long run. How is the deal made if they procrastrinate it or postpone it even further back in time? Everything is always on back order?

I mean, for the ASM Hydrasynth they have actually made shipments and the unit really do exist now in stores and shops. But they do have had back orders, and have made confession to this, because the demand for the synth was totally unexpected. Supply and demand wasn't that balanced. And one can't really anticipate this, all the time, to a tee. And, now, on top of that, the closing down on factories, and cities in China. Adding insult to injury.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The thing with all this, is that if they try to rush it out, later on, and make up for lost delivery, the QC may not turn out that good, and they will have a lot of warranty returns. Let's say what happened to DSI/Sequential flagship Prophet X synth. It's actually made in USA and priced thereafter. But now, when upgrading firmware, or latest software, there's numerous reports of the unit rebooting all of a sudden, and a plethora of bugs that wasn't there before. And they can't revert the upgrade to former versions. Which means they must have rushed it a bit in the beta testing stages. And they say "that bug will be fixed in the next release". And then that one comes. And those bugs are fixed, but not the other ones, and may introduce new bugs as well. Just like the old PC days and WIndows. It's no more less safe or solid than a CPU filled with buggy software. And people just lives with this, and are numbing to it. For me, not at that price. That's totally the reason I left my Roli Seaboard back. They never ironed out the irks and quirks, and have enough air under the wings, to let people live with these small annoying bugs, irks quirks. FDWIW that unit re-booted too now and then, without any reason. And that hardware ain't filled with synth sound generating software.

[papatomany]

I have an Atruria MicroFreak, thats touch sensitive!

I also have an Osomse on order- that looks like it may be one of the most expressive keyboards available.

https://www.expressivee.com/discover-osmose

Wow. I wish I was good enough to need that... and that I could afford it.