Arturia MiniFreak Unleashed! - So Much Better With Osmose and Midi Polyphonic Expression(MPE)! 

it looked a little disappointing, like he could only either use poly aftertouch or per-note pitch bend but not both at the same time or something like that. And something weird about the pressure too.

I think the SWAM instruments can do it

Not directly. The P is important - those instruments are essentially monophonic. (The stringed instruments do let you play two adjacent strings simultaneously, but they share expression data) The SWAM instruments, mapped through Divismate, can do it.

And name it "The Bootsy"

It’s called HydraSynth, look up the ceo

something like that just came out, polybrute 16

@@flaviobanterla Yes! Analog and expensive. Hydrasynth is digital and cheaper. Two nice instruments

Well thats certainly true if the synth really supports MPE, but I havent actually found any evidence that the Minifreak really supports MPE. And so this video may really just be a demonstration of what fun you can still get out of a non-MPE synth with an expressive controller, combined with some confusion from Jack and his distributor contact about terminology, what MPE actually is and its technical details. Actually being able to bend or not bend notes individually would require proper MPE (or voice per midi channel on some older synths), but since that isnt demonstrated here and the Minifreak manual makes no mention of MPE, I am far from convinced.

@@steveelbows3797 jack said the minifreak has to be set to omni, which suggested to me that it was true MPE in the sense that the controller was sending out multichannel data and the minifreak was utilising that data to play each note on a separate channel. it certainly sounded that way to me. it doesn't really matter (to me at least). i was only pointing out something that jack didn't mention abut MPE. the synth sounded great and he was having fun.

@@Simeon_Harris The Omni mode on the Minifreak just means its listening to all midi channels, it doesnt mean its handling the info from them in the fancy way that MPE requires. Lots of fun can be had with non-MPE synths and expressive controllers, but distributors and stores should try to understand the details so they can help their customers understand what is and is not possible.

@@steveelbows3797 I agree with you

@@steveelbows3797 You're right, the Arturia MiniFreak doesn't support MPE. It's unfortunate because I really enjoyed this video but the title is either a mistake, or shameless clickbait on the channel's part..

Yep. I picked up the Osmose basically as a midi controller for my Hydrasynth Explorer (no way I'm doing sound design in Haken Editor) and I'm loving it.

The pressure weighted portamento feature, or whatever they're calling it now (pressure glide?) makes up for a lot of that, and in some use cases, seems to be a cleaner solution. ...on the internal synth, at least. I'm told it's not supported on external MIDI yet. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UUh9nkDorZk.html

@@AaronLevitz it's just definitely not as initiative as a traditional capacitive touch surface. Even on something like the Seaboard the simple act of point a point b x and y axis bending makes a lot more sense, and it opens up a lot of stuff (i.e. stuff like "fretless" unquantized playing) that just doesn't seem particularly well suited or possible on the Osmose. Still, I'd imagine poly AT + a little bit of x movement for basic bends and vibrato is probably what people who primarily play keyboard really want, vs learning a new instrument that makes smoothly bending from chord to chord accurately, or making sliding gliding bass lines more initiative. Kind of a halfway house for MPE, but still probably closer to what the majority of people want.

I will say, I am not sold on the Y axis being worthwhile on keyboard based layouts. It's great on something like Haken Continuum, where the black keys are the same size as white keys. But when absolute position in Y means a different percentage on one key than the key next to it, that's basically unusable. Relative movement from your initial point of touch can work, but no one's accounted for the distance to edge on different sized keys in a way that feels satisfying. I've made a few attempts myself, scripting midi utilities to process that data, but haven't loved any of them. So, I usually disable that.

KMI agreed with your assessment and stated as much when they designed the K-Board Pro 4, despite every single artist in their prototype demos performing a glissando with expectation of a smooth glide. (I suggested that there was still time to add a glide bar above or below the keys, like the smoothed areas on a Seaboard, but they insisted that their customers, such as myself, didn't want that.) You don't see a lot of the K-Board Pro anymore. I sold mine off in frustration, but the truth is, I regret that. --- Seaboard RISE is fantastic for mono lines. Leads and bass parts. Countermelodies. There's nothing better. Seaboard BLOCK is not nearly as good for those. But it's much better for chords, because the smaller keys didn't splay your fingers as much, or fall out of tune as the surface helped stabilize them. You can compensate on RISE by changing the X sensitivity, but now you've sacrificed the X axis. You can also use a wider voicing, limiting yourself to thumb and one finger in either hand. But now you're sacrificing muscle memory, and a lot of tonal colors. So I would argue that you want a different controller while composing an overall structure. And you want that right next to your Linnstrument or Seaboard, for two handed play. KMI's offering could have served that need, fairly well. Because, yes. Poly aftertouch and a bit of vibrato is all you need there. ...but Osmose handles that better.

Also, I don't specifically need 1-to-1 placement between notes. I need 1-to-1 placement on the *ends* of a glide, and I want precise control of my position between there, but if I'm moving an octave or two, I'd just as soon leave my hand ready to play the next note where it started. Wouldn't you? (This is still a harsh compromise, because I want the ability to choose whether two notes play on different voices, or glide from one to the other. You can say "intervals wider than ____ never glide", but those smaller intervals are still locked into this feature. And I do like the mild dissonance of a major second. ...but I think that's solveable. If not now, than through a firmware update later. We just need one of the pedals to enable or bypass glide altogether.)

Upper part is how you do chromatic glissando.

@@chickberth Agreed. With the higher note on sensitivity, you can tap or gently "strum" the upper parts above the keys just as you suggested for glissando and other percussive effects.

PB lacks MPE support, P6 and OB6 do as a few other analog or hybrid, digitals do.

Have you figured this issue out? I’m stuck too.

Unfortunately I'm not even convinced the hardware version actually supports MPE, despite the title of this video. The manual certainly doesnt mention MPE. And this demonstration doesnt actually demonstrate that MPE is working, eg we cant tell that the pitch bend is actually being done on a per voice basis. My assumption that a lack of knowledge about the precise technical aspects of MPE have led to this confusion and a potentially misleading video. Controllers like the Osmose can still be fun with non-MPE synths, you can still get some expression out of them, but some features wont actually work on a per-note basis.

@@steveelbows3797 page 82 in the user manual : "When receiving external MIDI, the MiniFreak's sound engine is compatible with polyphonic aftertouch MIDI messages, where aftertouch modulation is applied in different amounts to each note individually."

Thats not MPE.@@huli8557

@@steveelbows3797you’re spot on here - quite a misleading video, as the Minifreak is definitely not MPE, but does support polyphonic aftertouch which is nothing to do with MPE (it existed in MIDI spec long long ago).

The minifreak is not Mpe ( yet ? ). The Pbend value will be the last sent by the osmose, affecting all notes...This is just the demonstration of the osmose having pitchbend enabled keybed. To know if a synth is mpe or in mpe mode, play two notes bend one upward and the other downward, both should sound bended in their own direction. Not the case at all here.

@@Hreinth okay. So to get pitch bend from minifreak from a pitch bending enabled key bed, you have to open all 16 midi channels? Or? Did they do anything special to make this work?

@@mostsophisticatedtrash9221 Hi, to get exactly same result, you have to use "all midi channels" in the midi config menu of the Mfreak and Adjust bending value in the osmose sensitivity menu to 1 or 1/4 max, any other value ( I'm normally using 1/48 ) will make the bending barely noticiable. You'll see the pitchbend lightstrips move on the mfreak as you bend the key on the osmose. Hope this helps.

@@Hreinth oooh! THANK YOU! You're a godsend ♡ I've been thinking about getting osmose! I definitely have a push 3 coming, hopefully soon and I already have a minifreak

@@mostsophisticatedtrash9221 Hope u'll enjoy the combo ! I gonna make a feature request to arturia so MFreak gets an option to set pb range directly on the unit and of course, to enable mpe ! :)

I was actually back and forth on upgrading my Hydrasynth Explorer to the Deluxe. Decided for now to get the Osmose as my MPE controller for the Explorer and have been quite happy.

Think there was a video hatless before the andertons channels split and he got mercilessly (and needlessly!) ribbed about it in the comments. Haters gonna hate!

on the contrary I think the plugin doesn't make much sense without the hardware. It's a concept that is designed for hardware, it wouldn't make sense to carry the limitations it has to software (mainly the three knobs interface which is already confusing on the hardware). I would have said it gets you the Noise engineering algorithm in software but noise engineering already gives them for free as a vst. The rest you can find pretty much in the arturia software offering (pigments or V collection). Maybe if it is your only synth; as an alternative to pigments

@@valdir7426 so your justification is to say the interface is worth 5 times more than the same sounding software? You can midi map any controller to do what this does, that's why I posted what I did, it seems like poor value now considering.

@@dankeplace the "interface" will cost you 3 times more actually; and it's an actual hardware synth, so it's really not that crazy. I'm saying the the vst was created as a companion to the hardware and while the vst has merits on its own it doesn't seem entirely justified when comparing to arturia offering (that you can get for quite cheap when on sale). I have a minifreak and it's fine; but the algorithm system I find a bit too limited to have only three parameters to control it. There are no reasons for these limits on a vst. Was considering the minifreak but decided I was gonna go for something else; so I won't bother with the vst. Although I find the fact that it exists to be a great idea when you have the hardware. Oh and mapping a controller is absolutely not the same thing as using a dedicated interface. The interface is at least half of the appeal.

@@valdir7426 mapping a controller is the same experience, unequivocally, if not better. You can get a dedicated MIDI controller with a proper keybed for less than the Minifreak in hardware form. Mini keys limit the expression of the synth, but the VST option now lessens the appeal to many due to what I mentioned above. If you haven't yet used Arturia's software where they allow for MIDI mapping, I don't think you understand what you're talking about. I have a Pro 2 that would be easily mapped to the Mini's MIDI functions. You have hardware vs software, 1 costs 5 times more and achieves the exact same sounding results. The difference is you pay a premium for being able to take with you the hardware equivalent.

@@dankeplace "mapping a controller is the same experience, unequivocally, if not better." You can make a bold statement like this but that doesn't make it true. From my experience; no it's not. In fact that's the very reason people buy hardware, many people will tell you that; why do you think people will pay several thousand dollars for vintage instruments when there are great sounding vsts that sound really close? To have direct control of the synth they're playing. having a forest of identical knobs on a midi controller is not a great interface, it doesn't feel like an instrument, and you'd need quite a lot to control the minifreak. Unless you only use the presets with the macro thing but I'm not at all interested in that; I want to program the whole synth with knobs and buttons. I've been making music with softwares for 20 years; thank you I understand how midi mapping works.

I've recently picked up playing the guitar and it's the same thing there. You really have to be careful not to bend or press to hard but it makes for an overall better instrument.

Osmose allows you to tailor that setting (or disable it completely.) If one wanted to have a more typical keyboard/piano feel, there's even a mode on Osmose just for that.

Don't blame the instrument, blame the player. You need skill to be able to use an Osmose in the way it was intended, that's possibly why you have heard YT offerings you have. This is why PAT keyboards are not a standard, you need to retrain how you play and how much pressure is applied to each and every key you want to affect.

It has its own sounds matey

It is a synthesizer as well as a high-end controller though. price is all relative to what you can imagine yourself doing with it. It provides possibilities that are impossible with just about any other controller regardless of price. If you value that, it's up to you.

Has a specific engine that comes from Harken Audio. You should research before posting.

An MPE controller, of which there are maybe 4 others at the moment, none of which can be played like a traditional keyboard like this one, with a premium build quality that feels incredible to play and a deep synth engine inside. I’d say it’s worth it.

@@modeswitching This is the 1st single MPE offering with traditional keys and synth engine. Most others have always been a gel like membrane or something similar.

Why not?..

@@MTEllipsis I don't like the Vibrato on there wiggly keyboards. Perhaps folks who grow up on these, assuming that they become a long-lived standard instrument input (like a guitar or violin) players will learn how to use it. At this point it just sounds awful. Like a first year violin student.