MPE?

GX-80 is Cherry Audio's visionary flagship synthesizer that combines the unparalleled sound and features of the fabled GX-1 "Dream Machine"and its renowned descendant the CS-80 to create a powerhouse hybrid.
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NothanUmber
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MPE?

Post by NothanUmber »

Looks really promising!
Does the GX-80 support fully separate voices that can be controlled with MPE (so per voice modulations, pitch bend etc.) or does it stick to what the CS-80 could do (so poly-aftertouch but e.g. no poly-pitch bend etc.)?
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cherryaudio Greg
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Re: MPE?

Post by cherryaudio Greg »

Hi,

MPE is not part of the design due to the complexity that would arise from GX-80's dual layer architecture. It does feature polyphonic aftertouch, for the controllers that do support that. If you haven't already tried the demo, check it out!

"GX-80 boasts an impressive, dual-layer voicing architecture outfitted with 16 polyphonic voices per layer. The instrument is capable of sounding two different CS-80 style sounds simultaneously, while panning each rank independently, to produce exquisitely rich stereo timbres and complex, layered sounds. For ultimate flexibility and expressive performance, GX-80 provides a split keyboard mode and a clever option to simulate polyphonic aftertouch with a monophonic aftertouch controller."


Greg
NothanUmber
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Re: MPE?

Post by NothanUmber »

Will certainly play around with it when home, after listening to some demos I bought it unseen :)

Perhaps it would be possible to at least have an optional "last note" mode, similar to poly aftertouch emulation via channel aftertouch, where modulation and pitch bend events only affect the last played note. This would already allow to play chords and play a monophonic melody with pitch bends etc. on top with a Linnstrument&Co. (Optimally poly aftertouch would still be available in this mode of course, just the channel 1 events would get reassigned to the "latest voice")
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cherryaudio Robert
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Re: MPE?

Post by cherryaudio Robert »

"Perhaps it would be possible to at least have an optional "last note" mode, similar to poly aftertouch emulation via channel aftertouch, where modulation and pitch bend events only affect the last played note."

Perhaps we're misunderstanding your question. Have you tried the LAST button in the "Aftertouch Mode" on GX-80? That's our Last Note Priority mode option that does exactly what you describe.
Robert
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Robert Saint John, Director of Marketing
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NothanUmber
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Joined: Sat Aug 25, 2018 9:06 pm

Re: MPE?

Post by NothanUmber »

Thanks for your feedback!

From first experiments aftertouch mode "last" will just stop applying channel aftertouch to all but the last voice.
But other modulations like e.g. pitch bend don't seem to be treated the same way.

Experiment:
On Linnstrument (in either non-mpe, single channel or "channel per voice" (=mpe) mode) I play
a) a bass note.
b) slide with the finger to adjacent cells and back
c) Without releasing the finger I add a higher melody note with another finger.
d) Now I slide with this "melody" finger to another cell on the fingerboard.
e) I change the pressure of the bass note (while the melody voice still plays)

What I want:
a) bass note plays
b) bass note pitch slides continuously according to cell position
c) second voice appears
d) pitch of the melody (=last) voice changes continuously, pitch of the bass note (=not last) stays constant
e) optimally: timbre of the bass note changes (poly aftertouch should still work, not what the current "last" mode does)

What happens:
a) as in "what I want"
b) as in "what I want"
c) as in "what I want"
d) apparently for both "last" and "poly" mode: the pitch jumps between bass note and melody note, no continuous pitch bending over more than a semitone is possible anymore (odd that the behavior seems to be the same for "last" and "poly", would have expected that pitch bend applies globally to all sounding voices in "poly" mode, like it is the case with most single channel synths and the expected behavior in "last" mode - that it only affects the last voice. Thus neither mode behaves as expected...)
e) in "poly" mode: as in "what I want", in "last" mode real poly aftertouch is disabled (as expected but unfortunate)

So I am not able to play a melody line with pitch bends (or other modulations but aftertouch) on top of a stationary bass note (or chord).
Or can this be achieved with some other settings?

The optimal variant would of course be to set the Linnstrument to "channel per note" mode and have a "voice per channel" mode in GX-80, so pitch bends and all other modulations would work per finger/voice. But this would essentially be MPE...

P.S.: Please also consider +/- 24 semitones (optimal for Linnstrument) or +/- 48 semitones (MPE standard) for the pitch bend range. Currently one can only bend +/- one octave.
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