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No MPE sliding, only standard portamento

Been waiting for support for a couple of days now and no reply yet, so I'm hoping that one of the three users here may have some insight lol.


I have MPE enabled and working (for the most part) in several synths and DAWs, yet across all of them the same behavioural issue persists: MPE sliding does not work. There is portamento which simulates MPE sliding in the right conditions, but what is actually happening is that it is still snapping between notes, just with various degrees of smoothing depending on the slider in Erae Lab. In case the description is unclear, you can see a video here.


Is this normal behaviour for the Erae Touch or is there a configuration option somewhere that I'm missing?


Info: 

  • MPE is enabled in the DAWs and all of the plugins. 
  • MPE is enabled in the layout in Erae Lab and pushed to the controller.
  • Vibrato does work but as soon as you slide over another note it just snaps to that note. 
  • Other MPE signals such as pressure do work. 
  • The pitch bend range is 48 on both the controller and each of the synths. 
  • I am on the latest firmware.
  • The synths I've tested with are Serum, Vital, Phase Plant, Pigments, and all of the MPE compatible Ableton Live instruments (all of them except Operator)
  • The DAWs I've tested with are Ableton Live & Bitwig

10 CommentsSorted by Popular

Sorry to hear that Tom.  I'm like Elk, just want a bit better support, and also pretty hopeful abut the future development. I think the device is brilliant and is way beyond concept. Hope you keep it and keep on exploring the possibilities. 




  

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I find that when i set it to 48 pitch bend and smoothing to almost 90% i get pretty good results. smoothing  effect can take a long(er) time so it depends how fast transition you need and how big interval is. here is my video attached.

i think that longer smoothing will give you that effect (in smallest interval) but it will take proportionally longer time to "smooth it"

also check is pitch bend same in both EraeLab and in VST

m4v
slide.m4v
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Thank you, so just to confirm: the Erae Touch only supports smoothing/portamento and not real MPE sliding? So it would be impossible to hold the pitch indefinitely between notes?

What would be "Real MPE sliding"? and how would that sound like :) 

i was looking to mimic real instruments but sadly i found out that i cannot do it with sample based VST (like IRCAM solo instruments)... no matter what the setup for glissando is, its recorded sound and pitching it would just distort it. 
Then i discovered physically modeled instruments like SWAM VSTs and than it all clicked. 

i can pitch bend and hold the notes indefinitely and the sounds (saxophone e.g) is generated on the fly

There is also this trick posted by Omar. If you are thinking of keeping microtonal change between notes (indefinitely??) 

https://embodme.freshdesk.com/support/discussions/topics/80000655658

will try it myself.

Real MPE sliding would allow you to slide to the middle between 2 notes and hold it there indefinitely without it gliding to the nearest "proper" note, or allow you to slide at different speeds based on your finger speed rather than the smoothing speed set in Erae Lab. In other words, it would actually read the position of your finger to decide the pitch instead of smoothing between notes. From what I can tell, the Touch doesn't support this and only has portamento/smoothing, which most keyboards/synths have supported for the last 30 years or so and has nothing to do with MPE

what you are describing sound like Y or X/Y fader attached to keyboard/synths. but i think i got your point. thank you for the explanation. I am quite new to this field myself and sad that we cant get answers from the embodme directly. Seem like a software improvement. Device is more than capable for what you are describing. 

Well, I reached out to embodme through Instagram and they responded. Sounds like support is still "on the table" and I guess they are monitoring the forum without engaging? Seems like there is some hope for future development
Screenshot20230627074347Instagram.jpg
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Thanks Elk. Seems like Embodme are more interested in making new products than finishing their existing ones so I'm just returning my Erae. It's a shame, the concept is very cool, hopefully a better company can make a better implementation of it one day.

No worries, Tom.


I understand where you are coming from. I am just a user, like yourself, and I definitely want support for my controller lol.


I will say that this pad is great, and Omar has made an update regarding the future of the Erae. I'm personally going to hold out, and see if I can be present on the forum to help others the best I can. It seems like there will definitely be more support, and a new firmware release in September. 


I think most of us are experiencing some frustration with communication and lack thereof, but I'm also pretty hopeful abut the future development.


Either way, you should do what's best for you in the meantime. With support, I am sure the Erae will be around long enough to snag another down the road as it matures.


Worst case, I'll make some threads here so people can follow along. The V1.3 update never got a post here, I'll be sure to at least get firmware development releases posted for others lol

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