Re: Spire Synthesizer

MPE is the next level of expression. Like the velocity and AT.
You can have a fulltouch keyboard like the Polybrute, vibrato per note, pitch per note.

I know what it is, I currently own 8 MPE controllers. It's just that I don't see the actual MPE side of it as in any way useful, beyond one or two very, very specific use-cases, all of which have fairly simple workarounds if you really want to achieve those things, like keyboard splits. In every demo video I have ever watched of someone using an MPE controller, mostly Roli stuff, I have only once seen anyone actually use MPE to any great effect.

As I said, the thing that works for me is the dimensions of touch, which allow for very expressive performance, one-handed. But I don't need that on every instrument I own. For something like a sequenced bassline, which are mostly monophonic, MPE is utterly useless. Having a couple of synths that are MPE aware is all I need and I can't understand anyone having MPE as a must-have for every synth in their collection. It excludes way too many perfectly wonderful instruments.

This is my biggest issue with you. Your inability to see value in anything that doesn’t benefit you

So illuminate me. Explain to me why you have to have MPE in every, single instrument because it makes less than zero sense to me and every time I ask this simple question, I get responses like this. I ask questions in the (forlorn) hope of getting answers, of making sense of things, not to tick you off.

I don’t even like pitch and mod wheels

There you go, that's a big clue, right there. To me, mod and pitch-bend wheels are as much a natural part of playing a synth as the keys. They've always been there and I've always used them. A lot of the factory patches on Analog Keys use them to incredible effect. The extra dimensions of touch are, for me, a natural extension of that, where MPE is kind of answering a question I would never have needed to ask.

So is it a guitarist thing? Does MPE make more sense to a guitarist than a keyboard player? Or is it something else? e.g. How much experience do you have playing multiple keyboards simultaneously? Because I had to do that for years, so maybe it's just more natural for me to think of solutions like that - play chords on one keyboard with one hand while doing lead/solo work on another keyboard with the other, that kind of thing.

But then again, I don't own an MPE controller. So maybe there is a world of expression that I am missing.

Yes, there is, but my point is that it's not actually MPE that offers 99% of that extra expression, it's the other features that MPE controllers invariably have - the extra "dimensions of touch". Things like the ability to wobble your finger on a key to get vibrato or slide your finger up the key to open the filter. I find the latter no more useful than a Mod Wheel but the former feels so natural that you do it without thinking. I imagine, though, that there will be a generation of people who grow up with MPE who will find it all as natural as you or I find using the Mod Wheel.

Statistics: Posted by zerocrossing — Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:47 pm