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Comments
I remember when Roland announced the MIDI 2.0 ready A-88 MkII keyboard controller, back in 2020.
Still a couple of problems though:
Exactly… waiting is a young man’s game that helps spending money when the baby needs shoes.
But for us, waiting assumes time we may not have left.
Statically, that’s correct. I’ll fly to London and pick it up myself
I love the osmose, but I can see it not being a fit for all
Can you say more?
More as in….?
I love my osmose, it works for me in my use
I can see how it may not be for everyone
I’m not sure what more should be said
Well, what kind of music do you use it for?
What was the learning curve like?
Do you tweak the presets a lot?
Any issues playing it?
How does it interface with iOS/iPad
Is there anything that might be improved?
Have you tried other MPE controllers?
We’re you an early subscriber?
You know, stuff like that.
I use it for the music I make which is hybrid hiphop all the way to edm popish?
I don’t play piano so for me there is no learning curve at all…it works like I feel it should for what I do.
No, I loaded the Eagan matrix…I fiddled with it for a few minutes…I erased it…it’s not my chosen form of synthesis to program.
I have tweaked the macros on a lot of patches…that’s all fine to me.
I don’t feel like I have any issues with it.
I haven’t interfaced it with my iPad.
It’s a new piece of gear that changes the keyboard as we know it…
As far as what I would say needed improvement…I’m really drawing a blank
Yes I have a hydrasynth, I tried a roli, I have a microfreak…
Hydrasynth pads are ok, roli sucked to me…it was like playing a mouse pad and it wears out your fingers fast, microfreak is aight, the MPE on it is sketchy based on humidity and moisture.
I bought it in November
I hope this helped
I guess I do wish it had a nice key/scales/and chord mode…progressions and such but it does not at this time.
I also believe the Eagan matrix looks like a gui from 20 years ago, and is not straight forward, and appears to be very deep, complex, and not patch developer friendly.
I also don’t know why they didn’t put the touche’ interface on it as a mod controller, instead of the nord style pitch bend and modulation…that’s was a weird exclusion.
I’M NOT DISSING ON YOUR BABY… but is the mother a gorilla? Just curious.
After spending $1800 on a controller it’s OK to just say “Not for me, thanks”. But I doubt anyone has a better take on an expressive controller than the Osmose. Time till tell if enough players master it as a new way to sing.
@MrSmileZ , thanks bro. That’s very informative and your Touché suggestion would have been great.
@McD says “I’M NOT DISSING ON YOUR BABY… but is the mother a gorilla? Just curious.”
Was that line spontaneously improvised?
and he says
“ But I doubt anyone has a better take on an expressive controller than the Osmose”. Well @MrSmileZ
a very good idea about using their own Touché technology but they didn’t think didn’t think of that.
A more interesting question might be why does it seem that OSMOSE has a bigger market than Roli?
The Seaboard checks a lot of boxes for me but not the box that says “ease of play”. Is OSMOSE easier to learn? Learning the touch on either would be the hardest part for me.
After getting your hands on the Osmose, how long did you try and learn to play the new instrument before returning it?
Haha, indeed!
Now that's the definition of a non-serviceable limited lifetime product. My gosh. And the Seaboards are not cheap at all.
What do you mean by "ease of play"? There's more than one aspect. The criticism I've heard the most is that it's too hard to get the notes to play in tune. I see this as no different than someone playing a fretless bass for the first time. The greater expression offered by non-fretted string instruments will always come at the cost of a learning-curve. With a Roli it's somewhat similar, except in this case at least the target points are marked out and raised.
Even then, it's possible to reduce the size and variance in the target via on-board controls (25 and 49 key only), and within the Dashboard software (all models, including the Block). So it's possible to hit notes dead-on in pitch, but with still enough possibility to add vibrato.
It really depends on the sound used, and how expressive one wants to be. Certain more percussive styles might certainly benefit from reducing side-to-side targeting. but with other instruments, it's even preferable to hit slightly off-pitch, but then bring it back to pitch via finger movement...then out again, perhaps. All adds to the expression and dynamic.
Either way, with time and practice, it becomes second-nature.
The other criticism I read a lot relates to fear about the repetitive stress of the side-to-side wiggle motion. But this seems to come, again, more from beginner users experiencing soreness from performing an action that is outside of normal movements. I also suspect that another contributing factor might be a tendency to apply too much pressure when first learning to play. With time and practice, the fingers become trained enough to be able to exert the necessary amount of pressure without the strain. Moreover, one can discover different ways of performing that wiggle motion so as to make it all less repetitive.
All these things take time.
I'm no virtuoso, and there was a long period of time when I stopped playing it completely. However, I've never experienced any strain. I've also become quite adept at pitching and/or tuning certain variables to best suit various sounds.
I guess like all instruments it comes down to personal taste. I can understand people not liking the feel of it. I love it, though. It fits so well with the entire aesthetic, which to me seems alien-like i.e literally other-worldly. It's a well-machined and heavy slab of alien technology, sent from another world, for the betterment of human music-making. That's how I like to see it anyway
YMMV
Same.
Yeah Mike, it does also seem you returned the Osmose awfully quickly. You had a month to return it, no? Might have been interesting to give it a go for a bit longer and see if it clicked.
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/expressive-e-osmose
'Thinking about ways continuous surface controllers are played, Y‑axis movements are often made subsequent to the initial touch, so in that sense implementing them in an aftertouch‑like phase in the Osmose makes little difference in the real world, and is probably easier to control to boot.'
Great review. Looks like an absolute bugger to program tho!
Have you ever played a Haken Continuum?
This is definitely the most expressive MPE controller.
I was thinking about getting an Osmose as a expansion for my Haken, but after playing it at Superbooth, I was happy, I didn‘t.
It's a bit of a silly argument really. The "most expressive" for what types of sounds?...for what style of playing?
Each of these MPE controllers brings something(s) to the table that the others don't do, and there're negative aspects to each. Interestingly, the iPad is an excellent solution for MPE expression.
Not denying you can get good results using an iPad. But I would hesitate to say that it's an "excellent" solution for MPE expression. The main advance of MPE is polyphonic control in three dimensions of touch. iPad is not really capable of getting three dimensions of touch. You can get two easily on iPad: x-axis variation and y-axis variation. Then there's the third dimension that is typically pressure-variation, which iPad doesn't really do, and attempts to get third dimension of MPE control on iPad are not good.
Again, not to say you can't get good sounds using MPE with iPad as controller. Even two dimensions of polyphonic control are good compared to what basic midi gives you. But IMO it doesn't really satisfy requirements for being a good MPE controller if there's no way to get good polyphonic control over three dimensions of touch.
In the 4-5 years I've owned a Rise 49, i believe that that most of my playing has relied on 3 dimensions. That's initial strike for velocity, Glide (left-to-right) for vibrato, but then using after-touch and vertical slide interchangeably, depending on the preset I'm playing. All it would take to replicate much of what I do would be to assign the role of vertical slide to a separate slider or X/Y pad.
Roli's Noise app was a good start. However, it was ham-strung by it's need to follow the design of the hardware. Had it been laid out more like the Continuum, which the Rise essentially is anyway, it would've been possible to allow both strike-velocity and aftertouch along the same blade.
@hes, wasn’t there an iPhone that implemented pressing as a parameter?
@el_bo any hardware or software issues with the Rise over those five years?
Do you see the changes in Rise2 as significant?
Would you want a Rise2 or are you fine with the original?
Yes, but it doesn't actually measure pressure on iPad, that's not possible. So different methods have been tried to measure something else as a proxy, e.g., finger area touching the display. Problem is none of these are very good.
Again, not saying you can't get good expression with iPad as touch controller, it's just not going to be good for full mpe (three dimensional) touch control. Doesn't matter for many things. A breath controller is one way to add a hands-free third dimension of control to what you get with your fingers (but you can't vary breath control polyphonically).
@hes i have the Ring but, lol, have never used it. I got it on the going out of biz sale for a Benjamin.
I remember that sale. And I know you've commented on breath controllers before.
One setup I could imagine you using would be playing keyboard and having breath control (or ring) be used to add expression to melody (i.e., highest note) and having chords/accompaniment be free of that expression. You could have that melody midi go through SWAM instrument if you wanted, while chords go to piano. Not something you'd need if you're just playing parts into a DAW, but for live performance. Maybe even get creative: put the ring on a stick, put stick in mouth, and use head movements to change expression on your melody line. This is as close as I get to a @McD -style riff. Strapping ring to forehead might let you talk (sing?) at the same time.
Thanks @hes! That’s interesting advice. I don’t do live but I’m looking for a stick!
Here’s a nice clip showing what the Seaboard can emulate.
https://youtube.com/shorts/pIwHbsf9Y2A?feature=share
Software's been fine. In fact, with regard to sounds, you might be missing out if restricted to iPad. Equator 2, Cypher 2 and Strobe 2 all have excellent sounds to enjoy.
Hardware is a different question. I've had some intermittent issues over the years, with double-triggering and misaligned hits/tuning. Sometimes it's worse than others and can be annoying to pin down. More recently, I had a period of time where the left-most fader and the X/Y pad stopped working. The fader has spontaneously started to function properly, but the X/Y is still out of action.
Strange things like this that are a little annoying, and I have a sneaky suspicion (More a hope) that version 2 came with various not-so-visible internal changes, that might serve to make it a bit more robust. That's just speculation, of course.
I'm not really so clued-in about the Rise 2, though. From what I could see, there was nothing that would compel me to upgrade, even if I could afford to do so.
Would like to get mine repaired at some point. I've seen various quotes over he years, but I'm expecting it to cost a few hundred quid, give or take, including the round-trip delivery charges and I believe that would cover a complete replacement of the silicon keyboard/bedding. All in all, it's a bad price, given the cost and quality of the instrument. When I can comfortably afford to do it, I'll send it off.
If you can get to a store to try one, I'd do so...but on a few separate occasions (Gotta let that muscle-memory kick in). Perhaps there are places that would even rent one?
And then there's this:
Interesting. When I listen to your recordings I often imagine you being hamstringed by the DAW. Still not used to the idea of jazz performance in a DAW.
That's definitely good. But for monophonic lines I don't think you need an MPE controller. There's always a special feel you'll get from an MPE controller, and with unusual feel of Roli I can imagine getting tied to that. But I bet Jordan Rudess could do something close to that on Geoshred. I'm often surprised by how far people get with just a keyboard and a mod wheel.
Not dissing MPE controllers, I've got a Linnstrument and I like it.
Yeah Mike, given Roli's shady reputation, previous quality issues with both hardware and firmware, a reputation for terrible customer service, the fact they're in England and you're in the US, and much much more, I'd really think twice about buying anything from Roli
Thanks @hes i’m getting a lot out of your posts. To be truthful, I love the aesthetic. Just having such a technological marvel would please me. I’ve recently become able to indulge myself musically. I’m old and I want one. Maybe that’s all that matters whatever I am able to do. Plus it would be a challenge to learn and us aging brains need that.
Curious what you mean by hamstrung by a DAW? My workflow is to record 3-5 minute improvisations. I split the keyboard ranges to bass and treble parts and orchestrate from there. Often add a separate lead line. I can seean mpe controller initially for those leads.