Behringer Poly Aftertouch!

[Stokely]

I don't think I've ever tried poly AT (if I did it was long ago) but I imagine it's like mono..in that, it's more "playable" on some keyboards/patches than others.

 

I've played some keyboards and had aftertouch pop out with annoying effects when I didn't mean to...on the other hand, my Virus B was just a joy to play. I felt like I could completely control what the aftertouch was doing. I don't know if that was more the hardware (a nice action) or the programming, I suspect both. Of course you also get used to actions over time as well, though that Virus was easy to play from day 1.

 

 

[piano56]

I"m new to the forum, just want to say how much I"ve enjoyed this thread and the nice discourse among obviously veteran players.

 

I"m a veteran in some ways, newby in others. Appreciated the expressed commitment to piano. I am blessed to have two grands and one is spectacular, a totally tweaked out Steinway D, formerly a 1970s artists piano immaculately restored better than new. Time spent on that piano playing great rep is time well spent.

 

I am seeking that immediate level of satisfaction and inspiration playing hardware synths. I play a lot of dense classical music (Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Scarlatti) with lots of inner voices - synth PAT seems important to digging in at that playing level. I just had my D action reworked, very slightly less heavy, less friction. Lighter synth actions seem more sensible every year that passes.

 

My career was in tech industry (recently retired). I"ve performed a lot but only really classical recitals and competitions, in spite of starting at age 4 playing by ear and did a couple of garage bands early on. I had a Vision based studio as a sideline in the early 90s doing some fun tv/film work. Who knows if I"ll ever play out commercially again, like many of you do.

 

I"ve sold all older hw (nothing so special) and starting over with Studio1, Komplete, new SL controller, quantum thunderbolt interface, new pc, new laptop, plus other specialty libraries and VSTs. I"m close to pulling the trigger on a Kawai ES8 as a portable practice piano..if anyone thinks that Kawai is a mistake, I"m all ears for a few more days. I"m thinking of maybe a $4Kish synth budget for next year (over/above the Kawai).

 

We"re probably all tracking the same very interesting new gear coming out. The one difference might be that I"m starting from blank slate, so nothing to rationalize 'I sort of already have that.'

 

I compose two ways: pen/paper away from piano, or improvise on piano until something clicks. Improvising/composing on a nice expressive poly synth sounds fun.

 

I"m not overly religious about analog. I built a couple of analog synths decades ago in electrical engineering school, I know the pros/cons. I see a lot to like in these new digital designs. I get the random warmth of real analog, in fact think my Steinway"s warmth comes from impure random things that somehow magically line up - but a lot to be said for oscillator stability/tuning plus architectural scalability.

 

FM is a bit of a puzzle...never owned or played a heavy fm synth (missed the dx7 craze). Trying to understand why or even if some of these new digital synths sound a little icey in fm mode (on YouTube). I get the fm math but need some hands on experience. Any thoughts?

 

I need hw that"s accessible but deep:-). I don"t need a ROMpler (my iPad serves that plus nice emulations). I want an inspirational playing experience without digging forever.

 

Finally back to OP: Behringer seems like the wild card on PAT...holding off buying until they hopefully show some cards at NAMM. Anyway thanks in advance for being here as a sounding board on these things. I"ll happily reciprocate and share what I learn. Pardon the long post.

 

[Reezekeys]

why do we have only one MOD wheel, always on left?

There are boards with multiple wheels or other modulation controllers (joysticks, levers, ribbons)... e.g. Roland Fantom and JD-XA, Korg Kronos, Physis K4. I don't see much need to add one on the other side... if you're thinking to modulate a left-hand part with your right hand, to do that you can usually play a left hand part WITH your right hand if need be (but not so easily vice versa). But the Kurzweil PC4 does give you the option of a configurable ribbon you can place in a strip above the keys.

Talking about extra/alternate controllers...meet the Technics WSA1, introduced almost 25 years ago (and bit the dust not too long after!). Two wheels (in addition to the pitch bend wheel). Neither spring loaded, but wheel 2 has a slight detent in the middle.

 

Also, the two balls... one is spring loaded and returns to center when you let go, the other one stays where you put it (which might be why they added the "reset" button). They can have six different assignable x/y parameters, per patch, stored in six memories recalled with the buttons here.

 

I had one of these until it was lost in a house fire (full disclosure: I worked for them on this synth, doing some factory patches & sequences). Truth be told I did not take much advantage of these extra controllers. I think that sometimes the concept of them is more alluring than the reality; most likely it depends on the kind of music you're making. I'll go out on a limb and say that for the average weekend warrior or rock/r&b/pop/etc. person, a pitch bend, mod wheel, mono aftertouch and expression pedal is more than enough to get the job done. I think most of the major MI manufacturers see it my way too â at least by the evidence of what they've been selling. Still, I have nothing but respect for anyone pushing the envelope with control surfaces and other things of that ilk. I hope there's enough of a market to make their efforts pay off.

 

[Tom Williams]

The Casio VZ1 (late 1980s) also had three wheels, as well as nicely routable aftertouch. That said, I mostly used it as a controller for a Voce organ module.

[Markyboard]

Hope it"s ok with everyone if we continue the discussion on Poly AT and MPE in this thread without it pertaining to Behringer.

 

At NAMM I spent some time with the Hydrasynth and the McMillen K-Board Pro 4 controller. On the Hydrasynth I was particularly interested in the Poly AT after some good discussions here. But while messing around with it I had this revelation, maybe obvious to everyone else; While Poly AT is better than mono (for some things) neither is very good as an expressive controller. Why you may ask? It is the only controller that by its very nature always returns to a value of 0.

 

For things like vibrato or your typical LFO modulation which typically cycle through 0 anyway it"s great. And again Poly AT is certainly better in this application for the reasons we"ve discussed. OK-way better Marzzz . But for shaping melody lines by controlling the filter or pitch? Or even for just bringing out certain notes to cut above the rest? How is it expressive to be swooping in from 0 on every note and returning to the same place? And can anyone really control the exact maximum amount of aftertouch applied or is it more like an on/ off effect? In this regard Poly AT is just as limited as mono.

 

I recognize this is the best we have at this time and of course it"s better then not having it. I also know you can adjust the AT response curve as desired to get some control over it. Still every note where AT is used will have some modulation on it, but no where near the control musicians get with other instruments. And so I"m not sure we"re much closer to having an expressive instrument.

 

 

More disappointing was discovering that the McMillan K- Board Pro 4 MPE controller works with the same limitation. You can slide your fingers forward or backwards to control how much the filter opens or closes for example. But where you end up is not continued with the next note played; it starts from whatever the initial filter is set to. Now maybe this is unique to each manufacturer but I kind of doubt it. Do any of these (like the Roli controllers) allow for y axis positional control without the sliding effect and how hard is that to control?

 

I was trying to think of a software solution that makes use of the last AT or MPE value to control the next. Sort of a relative mode instead of absolute. I"m not sure if this would work or maybe some other solution? I"m also curious about the Osmose which to my disappointment was no where to be seen at the NAMM show.

 

 

 

 

[AnotherScott]

More disappointing was discovering that the McMillan K- Board Pro 4 MPE controller works with the same limitation. You can slide your fingers forward or backwards to control how much the filter opens or closes for example. But where you end up is not continued with the next note played; it starts from whatever the initial filter is set to.

That's what I would expect... each note treated individually. If you want to open the filter and leave it there for subsequent notes, you can use a modulation wheel or a foot controller o definable knob for that.

[Tom Williams]

It depends on the synth engine. Kurzweil's VAST architecture (the only advanced synth I'm familiar with) has functions ("FUNs") that you can insert into the modulation path, which (among myriad other capabilities) allow you to take the maximum of, say, the current setting and the immediate previous setting. If you apply that to AT and volume (and/or filter), you should be able to swell notes individually, returning them to pre-mod state with each new key strike. I'm pretty sure that the FUNs are per-note, so poly-AT would match up with that quite nicely.

 

Regarding channel AT, I use that all the time for guitar-style vibrato, in which the AT invokes a slight upward pitch bend (My hand serves as the LFO). It's very effective! And since I use it on a Kurz, I have the option of exclusively applying that bend to high note, low note, or all currently keyed notes (while not bending damper-held notes).

 

[Markyboard]

More disappointing was discovering that the McMillan K- Board Pro 4 MPE controller works with the same limitation. You can slide your fingers forward or backwards to control how much the filter opens or closes for example. But where you end up is not continued with the next note played; it starts from whatever the initial filter is set to.

That's what I would expect... each note treated individually. If you want to open the filter and leave it there for subsequent notes, you can use a modulation wheel or a foot controller o definable knob for that.

 

It's not that I don't expect it. Ok, maybe I was hoping but I'm suggesting now that perhaps there's a better way to handle Poly AT and MPE or at least offer an alternate mode.

Obviously the mod wheel/foot controller affects every note and that's not what I'm looking for.

 

 

It depends on the synth engine. Kurzweil's VAST architecture (the only advanced synth I'm familiar with) has functions ("FUNs") that you can insert into the modulation path, which (among myriad other capabilities) allow you to take the maximum of, say, the current setting and the immediate previous setting. If you apply that to AT and volume (and/or filter), you should be able to swell notes individually, returning them to pre-mod state with each new key strike. I'm pretty sure that the FUNs are per-note, so poly-AT would match up with that quite nicely.

 

 

I hadn't considered that Tom. But iirc FUNs do not affect external midi in Performance mode. Still that's very interesting.

 

[AnotherScott]

Obviously the mod wheel/foot controller affects every note and that's not what I'm looking for.

Yes, mod wheel/foot controller affects every note; and the individual key control affects only the note you're playing. I guess you're looking for a hybrid mode, where the individual key control doesn't affect any additional already (or simultaneously) played notes, but does affect subsequent notes. Interesting idea.

 

[uhoh7]

why doesn't every board have a 40 year old feature supported by MIDI?

Maybe cost of implementing it reliably?

 

Since every POLY AT keyboard made in the past is coveted and many in use, I don't buy that.

 

It's one more sensor per key, no doubt extra expense, but less so as more are made.

 

The other dying feature in modern synths: multi-timbrality.

[jerrythek]

A lot of great points being discussed.

 

Having worked with poly AT for many years at Ensoniq, it is true that everyone can benefit from the most basic aspect of being able to hold a chord and invoke modulation only on a lead/melody note (or visa versa). But being able to hold a voicing and (lean into) one of the notes to bring it out is also a wonderful thing.

 

I too played the Hydrasynth and absolutely loved the polyAT - it is really implemented well. As for Markyboard"s discussion of the limitation of always starting/returning to 0, that can be dealt with by also using another controller in conjunction with the AT. This is why asking for more expressive control requires us to develop new techniques as well. Poly AT, some extra wheels/pedals/ribbons etc. requires us to practice using them in conjunction with each other. That takes time.

 

Who remembers the Yamaha VL-1? Without using the multiple wheels etc with the breath controller it wasn"t all that great sounding. You had to put more into it than just using the breath controller and playing notes to bring it to life. I am loving the fact that multiple companies are bringing back Poly AT, that multiple companies are offering cool MPE capable controllers. If we put some effort into growing our technique it"s going to mean more expressive music in return. Hurrah!

[Markyboard]

Yes Jerry...YES!

 

I mentioned this further back in this thread - the Andromeda allows you to set up a mod source that only activates when you exceed a specified trigger threshold. For example you can use an envelope to control opening the filter but only when AT = 64 or greater. The problem here is all held notes will be affected once the envelope triggers. However notes played after this will not be affected provided the trigger threshold is no longer exceeded (i.e. AT < 64). So this is a half solution at best.

 

I bring this up again because you can do something similar with Poly AT and get things way better- that is if the developers choose to.

 

Here are just 2 concepts:

 

1) Use an expression pedal to set the amount of modulation you want to control the filter. Use Poly AT as a gate allowing that expression pedal modulation to be summed in with only those voices that have Poly AT applied. In this case Poly AT is either on or off so all the subtle (i.e. expressive) modulation is done with the expression pedal. The problem with this approach is when you first play the note there is no Poly AT - so your mod is starting from 0. But at least this helps control the amount of mod you get using the foot pedal giving more subtle control over the modulation effect.

 

2) What if you can use the velocity of each note as a starting value or an offset value for the Poly AT? So notes hit harder will have a higher starting Poly AT initial value. Or you can use the last Poly AT value as the starting vallue for the next note(s) that receive Poly AT. Or how 'bout selectable Low/High/Last Poly AT Priority? Once the Poly AT mechanism physically reaches the initial value then the amount can be controlled from there. This is what I referred to as relative mode Poly AT as opposed to absolute.

 

Anyway these are just "what if" concepts but what Jerry said is true. You need to take advantage of multiple controllers simultaneously to get more expression. This is why I'm hoping the re-introduction of Poly AT is more than what we had 30 years ago and MPE is implemented with some forward thinking ideas. Once the physical mechanism is in place we need software design that take advantage of this with musical expression in mind.

 

 

[Legatoboy]

I kept my A-50 Roland controller from years ago... but you really have to lay-into it to say open the filter etc.., it's not a Yamaha CS80 action for sure.

I tried a number of it's curves, still not much help but it does work. I paired it with my CS80 V software..I know that software has some parameters in response to PAT but I haven't dove into them yet!

Anything closer to the type of sensitivity a CS80 would give you would be better than the A-50, even by half but I should investigate the CS80 V software more before I totally trash the A-50 in that regard!

 

The last time I used it was on a Hippie Wedding gig in Manhattan at a jazz venue with Buddy Cage (NR) in the band and Michael Falzarano( Hot Tuna/NR)... over 5 years ago for sure more like 8.

I was sorry I brought it to the gig and used with the old GEM piano module only... It's non- weighted and a shallow key throw is not good for piano from it's synth action keybed (it never really is). I did that for and easy light load in/out primarily..

I did have a Steinway M for the cocktail hour though that gig and that did have really good Poly Aftertouch!