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Osmose keyboard


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I honestly thought the price would be much higher for such a unique instrument. I hope I can find a way to try the Osmose in person when I'm in the market for another keyboard because it's too cool and interesting to pass up. I have a feeling I'll either fall in love with it or the keybed feel will be a dealbreaker.

Keyboards: Nord Electro 6D 73, Korg SV-1 88, Minilogue XD, Yamaha YPG-625

Bonus: Boss RC-3 Loopstation

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I have a feeling I'll either fall in love with it or the keybed feel will be a dealbreaker.

 

I was already looking for something really expressive, and I figured the action couldn't be more off-putting than a Seaboard or less familiar than a LinnStrument, so I ordered one the day they were announced. I'm just waiting patiently, biding my time.

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Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Latest announcements include Pressure Weighted Portamento:

 

"This patented technology takes advantage of the sophisticated sensor technology within each key of Osmose's Augmented Keyboard Action: A player can define a pitch interval within which two keypresses are interpreted as a legato line instead of polyphonic playing. Unlike regular portamento that makes the pitch glide to the last note's pitch within a fixed amount of portamento time, the Pressure-weighted Portamento reacts to the pressure ratio between the two notes. The pitch will dynamically glide between the notes in real-time, always reacting to how the player distributes pressure between the two notes."

 

[video:youtube]

 

I forgot when they announced that a factory in China will produce these units. Mass production and first shipments to launch in mid-June.

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Mass production and first shipments to launch in mid-June.

:roll:

 

dB

 

On another forum, one immediate response was "September!"

 

He forgot to add 2022 I'm sure.

 

Personally I'm not in a hurry. It's not like major Hollywood directors are calling me day and night for my special Osmose sounds for soundstracks.

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I"ve been looking forward to the release since the moment they announced the forthcoming product, but I"ve also been realistic about the likely timetable. We saw an early prototype with some thought to manufacturability, but they had a long road ahead of them with a lot of external factors complicating matters. The good news every step of the way is that they"ve been able to showcase how the AKA mechanism works well with the EaganMatrix engine to remarkable effect.

 

The one drawback I anticipated in building off a conventional keyboard as their foundation was that they wouldn"t have convenient glides. I couldn"t be happier to be wrong about this! Not only to let me do something like bend into a note, or for dramatic CS-80 style monophonic lines, but even going as far as to recognize multiple independent concurrent portamento transitions by limiting the trigger to a defined interval. Very, very cool.

 

⦠and I"d be fine with September. I"m going to be away from the location where I"d want it shipped during the current shipping window, so if they can delay just a little longer I wouldn"t miss out on as much of the early fun. ;-)

Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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I"ve been looking forward to the release since the moment they announced the forthcoming product, but I"ve also been realistic about the likely timetable. We saw an early prototype with some thought to manufacturability, but they had a long road ahead of them with a lot of external factors complicating matters. The good news every step of the way is that they"ve been able to showcase how the AKA mechanism works well with the EaganMatrix engine to remarkable effect.

 

The one drawback I anticipated in building off a conventional keyboard as their foundation was that they wouldn"t have convenient glides. I couldn"t be happier to be wrong about this! Not only to let me do something like bend into a note, or for dramatic CS-80 style monophonic lines, but even going as far as to recognize multiple independent concurrent portamento transitions by limiting the trigger to a defined interval. Very, very cool.

 

⦠and I"d be fine with September. I"m going to be away from the location where I"d want it shipped during the current shipping window, so if they can delay just a little longer I wouldn"t miss out on as much of the early fun. ;-)

 

I am similarly excited. Perhaps this is a consequence of my lack of keyboard skill but I've not been able to play grace notes with the same kind of subtlety on a keyboard that I can play on viola/violin, as influenced by what little I learned of Persian music. The grace notes are very subtle - barely audible, almost like a whisper.

 

Examples here include Kayhan Kalhor's intro on the setar, then the ney part.

 

[video:youtube]

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Nice to see that production is finally humming along. I made the decision to sell mine some time ago for personal reasons, but the more I read about it, the more pleased I am for the buyer. He will have a ton of run with it!

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

Editor-in-Chief, Bjooks ~ Author of SYNTH GEMS 1

 

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  • 2 months later...
Mass production and first shipments to launch in mid-June.

:roll:

 

dB

 

On another forum, one immediate response was "September!"

 

 

Latest update still says shipping starts in September, with July-August for operator training and quality checks.

 

Frankly, I thought it would be pushed back more because of COVID.

 

Also, new MPE Arpeggiator feature.

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

https://mailchi.mp/expressivee/road-map-update-2

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There are some very clever aspects of their arpeggiator implementation showcased here that will be fun to tinker with. Being able to modulate per-note swing timing based on factors like initial pressure sounds fantastic. The September start for shipments should work wonderfully for me since I'll be returning to the location where I want to have mind at the start of October. I presume it'll take a while for them to catch up on early orders, with mine coming about eight hours after they started taking deposits.

Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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  • 8 months later...
On 3/19/2021 at 4:13 PM, GovernorSilver said:

 

On another forum, one immediate response was "September!"

 

He forgot to add 2022 I'm sure.

 

Personally I'm not in a hurry. It's not like major Hollywood directors are calling me day and night for my special Osmose sounds for soundstracks.

 

Looks like they are on track for 2022.   Source

 

5ca75e25-fb73-b1f6-70ea-24302e4b28d5.gif

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I said this on social media somewhere, but the first handful of musicians that truly master the osmose are going to be able to do some damn cool things in a live environment :) 

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I want one!! :)

The companions I can't live without: Kawai Acoustic Grand, Yamaha MontageM8x, Studiologic Numa Piano X GT, Kronos2-73, .
Other important stuff: Novation Summit, NI Komplete Ultimate 14 CE, Omnisphere, EW Hollywood Orchestra Opus, Spitfire Symphony Orchestra, Sonuscore Elysion and Orchestra Complete 3, Pianoteq 8 Pro, Roland RD88.

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19 minutes ago, Dr Nursers said:

I said this on social media somewhere, but the first handful of musicians that truly master the osmose are going to be able to do some damn cool things in a live environment :) 

 

 

Yeah, as much it´s interesting technology wise, I always think about what for it´s important in "real world usage".

 

It comes close to the question what´s more important,- playing (a lot of) expressive notes on a "standard" keyboard,- or playing 1-finger style w/ lots of "controller" options (as the opposite extreme).

In my life as a pro musician and now being almost retired, I rarely/ or never needed more than a handful of MIDI controller options.

MIDI CC4 (foot pedal), CC11 (expression) and the usual pitch bend and modulation controls.

It seems, the less playing abilities exist, the more controllers you need.

 

The Osmose is a truly interesting piece of gear, but I also doubt it´s necessary to have (commercial) success w/ music.

 

I doubt musical success depends on controlling every single nuance of electronic TONE during a performance.

Not even an acoustic Stradivari string instrument allows in that manner.

Instead,- mastering limitations w/ playing skills matters,- and I don´t say I´m perfect w/ this.

 

But when thinking technology compensates for playing skills/techniques,- that´s wrong !

 

:)

 

A.C.

 

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55 minutes ago, Dr Nursers said:

there will be some who will exploit the 'novelty' of the gear for live effect

 

.. and I´m still one of these and even I posted the above !

But I´m pretty sure it´s all about idealism.

 

:)

 

A.C.

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I'm sure the younger players (sorry, old guys) who have an Osmose on order will inspire the rest of us as they bring their talent to bear.

 

Simply being able to wiggle fingers on the keys (mechanical pitch) to get pitch bend/vibrato without having to give up one hand to use a pitch/mod control seems to be a major selling point.    Without the mechanical pitch, most interested users would probably just stick with the more popular brand keyboard synth with quality velocity and/or aftertouch keybed.

 

There was somebody who complained that Osmose keys are not sensitive to finger placement on the Y-axis.   He doesn't have much experience playing piano - well, less experience than myself anyway.  Took quite a while to explain to him that finger placement on the Y-axis is pretty hard to control when playing keys - harder than control over velocity or aftertouch, because unless your music only uses the notes of the C major scale, you're frequently moving between black and white keys.  Even if Expressive E engineered Y-axis sensitivity into the keys, I suspect most players would turn it off out of annoyance.

 

About the only time I had to focus on vertical finger placement on a key was when I learned how to do a drum roll on a keyboard instead of drum pad - even then it was just making sure the right and left hand fingers don't interfere each other.

 

The Roli felt playable to me, but also felt like playing a mattress, as others have reported.  The company had some financial troubles and was out of business for a bit.  Some of the Seaboard models had a built-in synth engine for standalone operation (no computer needed for gigging).  I understand Roli is back in business, but their standalone-capable Seaboards do not appear to be in production anymore.

 

I have not yet tried the KMI K-Board Pro 4 which has MPE for letting you wiggle the fingers too, but it's controller-only - no built-in super responsive synth multi-engine.

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  • 1 month later...

First container of production Osmose is in transit from China to France where they will be individually QA checked. Pre order customers will be assigned a shipping date and first customer shipments commence in mid December 2022. They anticipate clearing their preorder backlog by end of Q1 next year.

Moe

---

 

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9 hours ago, mate stubb said:

First container of production Osmose is in transit from China to France where they will be individually QA checked. Pre order customers will be assigned a shipping date and first customer shipments commence in mid December 2022. They anticipate clearing their preorder backlog by end of Q1 next year.

They were a little inconsistent on dates.  The email they sent out to pre-orderers said pre-order delivered would continue until the end of Q1.  The web site, on the other hand, specifically says that for first- and second-chance pre-orders they'll be delivering until Q3.  Are they actually thinking the second round of preorders will take up to another six months?  Or is one of those two dates a typo?  If so, which one?  There are still plenty of unknowns, which seems very much in keeping with the process to date.

 

Still, I'm anxiously awaiting mine.  It was also a day one order, but since they're establishing distribution centers in France and the United States and shipping indirectly, I expect the first North American orders might take a little longer to arrive.  I'm hopeful that I'll see mind in January but I won't be surprised if it takes just a little longer.

Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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3 hours ago, JazzPiano88 said:

Theranos? 

Nope. Way too many respected musicians have played prototypes and raved. They haven’t held back bad news. The good faith effort is obvious and so is the care. Musicians all comment on it. There’s enough video to show progress. I’m just so happy that someone put in the work to try for something this ambitious. Edward Eagen is not a fly by night dude to put his name on anything less than the excellence of the Continuum. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's actually happening. EU has the first 500 units and is shipping to some preorders. First USA container hasn't yet made it. They want everyone who did pre-order to log into their website and verify they are correctly identified as being in EU or Americas, if not to email support. When pre-orders are ready to ship emails go out and the website shows the Osmose can be added to cart and paid for. 

 

I think my balance is 1079 euros or $$, shown on the site. Should be very interesting. I'm hoping to see some good videos up by the time mine arrives. LOL

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RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Osmose orders are starting to arrive in Europe, with several confirmed unboxings in France due to proximity to the warehouse.  I'm sure we'll see a trickle of hands-on videos from the earlier adopters over the next couple of days, but it also sounds like there's an embargo set for January 5th when more of the influencer crowd's more heavily produced impressions will arrive.  I expect they'll also have the full manual and a new web page for the product launched around the same time.

 

North American orders await another container delivery so they'll be another month or two, but the product is starting to look very real indeed.

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Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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