Newfangled Audio Pendulate (and Generate coming soon...)

[brightonrock]

From the Pendulate user guide:
"Pendulate supports a relatively new MIDI mode called Midi Polyphonic Expression, or MPE. If you’re using an MPE compatible controller and an MPE compatible host, turning on the MPE button will allow you to have polyphonic pitch bend, pressure, and timbre controls. Pendulate is already amazing with a normal midi setup, but MPE allows you to add another level of expressiveness."

Polyphonic pitch-bend, pressure and timbre control, but it's a monosynth.

I'm still not sure what the "MPE" on the top row button is doing.
I might have missed something, but it seems like nothing changes having it ON or OFF.

I think turning on MPE enables the Timbre (TMB) modulation control (bottom right corner of the UI).

[Niowiad]

From the Pendulate user guide:
"Pendulate supports a relatively new MIDI mode called Midi Polyphonic Expression, or MPE. If you’re using an MPE compatible controller and an MPE compatible host, turning on the MPE button will allow you to have polyphonic pitch bend, pressure, and timbre controls. Pendulate is already amazing with a normal midi setup, but MPE allows you to add another level of expressiveness."

Polyphonic pitch-bend, pressure and timbre control, but it's a monosynth.

I'm still not sure what the "MPE" on the top row button is doing.
I might have missed something, but it seems like nothing changes having it ON or OFF.

I think turning on MPE enables the Timbre (TMB) modulation control (bottom right corner of the UI).

It's a little confusing, besides this entire "monophonic MPE" issue.
The "TMB" (as the Y-direction) seems to work regardless of the "MPE" button, on my Sensel Morph.

But one thing I just noticed is, when "MPE" is selected, it creates a "Pressure" mod-amount fader in the LowPassGate section.

[Tj Shredder]

If you turn on MPE, the controls don't fight each other anymore. Try to bend holding two notes (only one sounding of course) in opposite directions. With MPE off you get both bends making the pitch jump around... Exactly whats to be expected... Also in MPE mode you can bend the not playing note and on releasing the sounding note it will move to the bent pitch... Exactly how a mono sound should act with MPE on...

[Niowiad]

Also in MPE mode you can bend the not playing note and on releasing the sounding note it will move to the bent pitch...

Don't know if I got this wrong, but at least with the Morph this seems to work both with "MPE" on and off.

On the other side, I paid more attention to the "conflicting" signals with MPE off and multiple notes held down, and that's sure noticeable.
Good to know. Thanks.

[Shifrin]

Don't suppose anyone on a Win7 install has tried this given the Win8.1+ system requirement?!

[ThomasHelzle]

Does MPE work for all of you? In Bitwig Studio (latest) with the synth set to MPE both internally and in Bitwig, I can only play some notes but others are dead with a Seaboard Block. Seems rather random and it's not always the same notes.
Works with all other MPE synths I have...

Cheers,

Tom

[Mikelo]

Don't suppose anyone on a Win7 install has tried this given the Win8.1+ system requirement?!

Works fine on my Windows 7 64

[foosnark]

I thought I would like this immediately, but... I have mixed feelings. Being a West Coast synth fan and modular head, I'm extra picky about some of this stuff, and also used to things done differently.

To me the most interesting sounds are:

- Sub2 going into the folder to add extra growliness. Makes me realize I never really mess with sub oscillators in my modular patches.
- The "animate" thing, but I can replicate that with a frequency shifter (and have more control over it).

The oscillator: I feel like there might be missed potential here. I can't quite put my finger on most of it, but maybe it just needs some sharper yet stable edges possible.

One major flaw is the oscillator sync. A fixed ratio is just sad... you can't add movement. It needs to be sweepable. In fact, an audio rate modulation oscillator would do wonders for this thing -- for sync, or assignable to other parameters -- the chaos stuff, FM, or the wavefolder drive or symmetry.

The wavefolder: not my favorite style; I prefer Serge-style serial folders. It's not terrible though. But the cutoff control is goofy. For folks not familiar with West Coast synths: "cutoff" on a wavefolder is Not A Thing. I guess one of the Buchla designs has a capacitor in it and they extrapolated, but generally what comes out of a wavefolder is supposed to be bright and angular, and then you work with that.

The LPG: I don't personally like its character much. I know I am picky about my LPGs, but this one feels pretty lame. I think it needs a VCA switch, given the already not-super-bright-and-shiny oscillator, but it needs more than that.

Part of the fault of that I think is the envelopes. It's very non-snappy, non-plucky, even with all the sliders at minimum. It needs a curvature control.

And yes, a rescalable GUI would have been nice.


It's a free synth, so my complaints have a corresponding value but I feel like this took a shot at some interesting ideas but fell short of the bullseye.

[Shifrin]

Don't suppose anyone on a Win7 install has tried this given the Win8.1+ system requirement?!

Works fine on my Windows 7 64

Much appreciated

[El°HYM]

Has some potential as a free Noisemachine & would be great to see further Development on this one.

[MillerSam]

Here 40 free presets for it Would be happy about every financial help for my activity
https://www.synthanatomy.com/2020/09/ch ... synth.html

[gentleclockdivider]

Nice freebie , BUt I I can get the same results out of reaktor dwg osc+kodiak +lpg filter at a lower cpu footprint
Still , verry nice

[Brother Greg]

I really like this. The presets sound good and it's really easy to get around in altering the sound. Nice job!

It's working fine in Logic 10.15.1 on Catalina 10.15.6.

[Echoes in the Attic]

From the Pendulate user guide:
"Pendulate supports a relatively new MIDI mode called Midi Polyphonic Expression, or MPE. If you’re using an MPE compatible controller and an MPE compatible host, turning on the MPE button will allow you to have polyphonic pitch bend, pressure, and timbre controls. Pendulate is already amazing with a normal midi setup, but MPE allows you to add another level of expressiveness."

Polyphonic pitch-bend, pressure and timbre control, but it's a monosynth.

I'm still not sure what the "MPE" on the top row button is doing.
I might have missed something, but it seems like nothing changes having it ON or OFF.

Turning on the MPE does make a very important difference. It tracks simultaneously played notes on different channels independently, which means that when notes overlap you'll only hear the expression of the latest note, but it won't forget an older note if you keep it held. If you play an MPE device, sending it multi-channel midi, but don't have mpe on, and play a note, and then cut it off with another note while continuing to glide the pitch of the old note, you'll hear pitch glitching because it doesn't know which pitch bend signal to use. This is an issue with regular non-mpe devices when playing mono sounds. Turn it on and everything is smooth, you only hear the expression of the one you are supposed to be hearing. So this mean you can do abrupt changes between notes, legato fashion, and always return to the expression for a given held note. Think about holding one note and rapidly playing other notes on a vintage mono legato synth where they return to the held note when newer notes are lifted. With MPE on (each note tracked independently), you can do this while a held note is gliding or sliding or whatever and it always returns to the note as it is currently expressed. Maybe you are playing back to back notes quickly where one held note has a high Y-axis expression held and the second note has now expression, or the pitch is bent for one and not the other. Editing this kind of data is also infinitely easier (no sudden jumps to draw/edit in expressions, just edit the expressions tied to each note).

So yeah tracking independent note expressions for mono synths (or mono mode of a ploy synth) is still very useful. Many synth developers who add mpe compatibility overlook it.

MPE means polyphonic expression, but I don't think it needs to mean audible polyphony.

[Niowiad]

MPE means polyphonic expression, but I don't think it needs to mean audible polyphony.

It's the first time I'm personally seeing "MPE" in a monosynth which quite honestly got me confused, but what you guys are saying makes sense and somehow cleared it up for me.
The "MPE" button sure gets rid of some artifacts using the Morph, as also suggested above by TJ Shredder.

At this point, this makes me guess the "big brother" version Generate will be a monosynth too.
The couple of articles mentioning Generate and listing the expanded feature set don't mention polyphony at all.

Just few more days