Polyphonic Aftertouch

[Bobro]

I bless thee, thou who hast created Polyphonic Aftertouch. By thine creation hast shown thyself worthy of blessing, and of praise; yea, verily hast thou proven unto all the nations of the earth, that thou art to be honored, and blessed.

 

For he, unto whom the Spirit of Music is no stranger, yea, he unto whom the fires of the soul have come, bearing the agony, and the ecstasy, unto his being, must wiggle his fingers, verily jiggleth he his fingers, and in wiggling, and jiggling, grimaceth he as unto that which is grotesque, and as a gargoyle appeareth he unto the people, the whole of his hands, and of his body, and of his visage, being transformed, and driven as oxen which do labor under the yoke, verily as unto beasts of the field, which do labor under the whip.

 

And he who hath created with his hands a keyboard devoid and empty of Polyphonic Aftertouch, yea in his pride concieved to fashion a false image, and a deception, let him not speak of his mockery as of that which is true, and real; rather shall he hang his head, yea, shall his demeanor be downcast, and contrite, and he shall acknowledge the error of ways unto the people.

[bg]

Heck yes! Even my old EPS had poly AT. Must be the heathen masses crave it not.

[nitecrawler47]

Yep I'll stand PAT

-nitecrawler

[Bobro]

Originally posted by bg:

Heck yes! Even my old EPS had poly AT. Must be the heathen masses crave it not.

Bought an EPS for next to nothing on Ebay.de, it came today. As far as I can tell yet, it's in perfect condition in every way (from a film/TV soundtrack studio), came with a big pile of diskettes as a bonus although primarily I was thinking of a controller. The seller is one very cool and pro dude, too.

[Tusker]

Cameron:

 

I'd like to hear about your adventures with the EPS. I've thought about getting one (or a Roland A50) precisely for the jiggly oxen polyAT thing.

 

How heavy is it btw?

 

Jerry

[Bobro]

Originally posted by Tusker:

Cameron:

 

I'd like to hear about your adventures with the EPS. I've thought about getting one (or a Roland A50) precisely for the jiggly oxen polyAT thing.

 

How heavy is it btw?

 

Jerry

I have a good relationship with our mad, mad postman so today I actually carried the EPS a couple of blocks and up the stairs, having run into the postman on my way to the store. 25 pounds, I guess, it's about the right weight where you'd say, that feels nice, not heavy, not rinky-dink.

 

The action is really familiar- 80s lite but not-too-mushy synth keys, I like it. Must have played a Mirage or something in the 80s but don't remember. This one's been really well taken care of though, I bet the keys could get real mushy with use and abuse.

 

There's something funky with Bank 2, sometimes it won't load, or will freeze the synth, but no matter, the sampler/synth part is just gravy anyway. It get fairly warm, but not hot yet- won't be leaving it on all day, though. The sound is actually very good, it must have been pretty slick in its day and I prefer the overall color to most contemporary ROMplers- it's outdated, but pretty classy. Haven't checked out the modulation capabilities yet- as a controller for the Waldorf Pulse and for softsynths, it more than kicks ass for about 140 dollars.

 

-Bobro

 

 

 

.

[Synthguy]

I have an Ensoniq SD-1 and TS-10, and I lamented Emu/Ensoniq's decision to quit making poly aftertouch boards after that. I'm never letting go of these guys, they're still tops as far as workstations go even in this age of wondersynths. The velocity sensitivity gets a little cruddy as they age evidently, as I can't quite get that upper 118+ without banging the keys - which I refuse to do! So I'm getting something else to compliment them. Poly pressure is too sweet.

[Super 8]

Originally posted by Tusker:

Cameron:

I'd like to hear about your adventures with the EPS. I've thought about getting one (or a Roland A50) precisely for the jiggly oxen polyAT thing.

How heavy is it btw?

Talk to me if you decide you want one. I have one that I no longer use, in great shape (minus a ding or two). I'm the original owner. I'm not a keyboard player per se, so it's not like Rick Wakeman has been jamming on it, destroying the keys over the years. Like I said, it's in great shape, it has the 4x memory expander, so it's like 2.1 meg . Still, it's a 13-bit sampler, a lot of people love those 12-bit Emu's, so it's got a lot of character right?

 

Weight wise, it's probably on the heavy side. But I don't know how much it that would be.

[Bobro]

Jerry, I'd say check it out- this is a nice controller. It definitely feels like a synth, not a piano, but that's cool too. .

 

Maxed out at 2.1Mb, move over Gigasampler! The sound is ideal for drums, though; somehow 12-bits but with higher internal bit rate processing, the envelopes, the D/A, just the whole combination makes for good solid percussion playback. The danger is that the color it imparts makes you want to play late-eighties "Industrial" beats or "Trip-Hop".

 

-Bobro

[marino]

I remember when I first played the Roland A-80. I loved the action, then somebody told me it had poly aftertouch. Wow! I programmed something, pressed on the keys... nothing. Had I done something wrong? No, I double-checked everything. Then, with a macho press, I was able to hear the effect, barely. No human could control that, and with different pressures for every finger..! (Well, maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger...)

 

On the other hand, the YAMAHA CS-80 (!) had a very responsive poly aftertouch, I seem to remember.