Polyphonic Legato midi message

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Stelvio
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Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by Stelvio » Wed Dec 16, 2015 6:35 pm

Hello everyone,

Brand new to The world of iOS music.
I don't own Animoog but planning on getting it tomorrow when I get home.

I bought an iPad to explore multi timbal / polyphonic legato (still not sure how to call this).
I've tried apps like Ondes, MorphWiz, GeoSynth, they all allow you to play the keyboard "lapsteel style" allowing what I call chord-morphing. Those apps are great but I miss the ability to design my own patches. I also started using TC-11, a fantastic app for multi touch control but I'm not sure I'm happy with the synth engine and modules, still testing it, and the main problem is that it doesn't support any midi in or out so it's hardly usable for production or songwriting.

Today I came across the Animoog Expension MIDI pack and it sounds like I've found what I've been looking for (I'm pasting Moog's description below). Just want to make sure I'm not dreaming.

Can someone confirm that it's now possible to record individual legatos and fine tune them in ableton ? Can you record automations while jamming and then tweak them? Does it come up as envelopes?
In the same way, can you record other automations, say filter and tweak that in ableton afterward? If yes can it handle a lot of parameters being automated at once? Any known bugs, like lost connection, background audio support.... ?
Also is the Animoog midi expansion pack free?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm excited I may finally have found the instrument to create synth patch, play lap-steel style and automate it all :D

Looking forward to hear more about this Polyphonic Legato message feature.



The keyboard MIDI output also uses a special Polyphonic Legato message, created by Moog in order to accurately record the unique playing styles made possible by Animoog’s polyphonic, continuous ribbon-style keyboard. Polyphonic Legato allows you to record and play back Animoog performances while preserving expressive glides from note to note, with full polyphony. Since the performance is recorded as MIDI, you can keep tweaking the sound even after you’ve nailed the perfect expressive rendition of the notes.

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gbevin
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by gbevin » Thu Dec 17, 2015 6:02 am

Hi Stelvio,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

The Polyphonic Legato message is somewhat limited since it's not possible to send pitch bend individually for each note. So while the notes will be tied, they will not slide together as you probably want with lap steel style playing. Also, since this is not a commonly accepted standard message, it doesn't really behave properly with other synths and controllers.

We've been working on a solution in which all of this works and have been collaborating with others in the music industry. A new standard MIDI extension, called MPE, has been in the works for nearly a year and is close to being finalized. Once it has reached its final state, we'll evaluate how to support it in our apps.

Hope this helps,

Geert
Geert Bevin
Software Engineering Manager
Software Product Manager
Moog Music, Inc.

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Satri
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by Satri » Thu Dec 17, 2015 8:46 am

Hi Stelvio :-)

While you already got feedback from the best person that could answer you (Geert), here's a bit more info that might interest you. If you want to learn more about this 'Expressive MIDI' standard in the works, head here http://animoog.org/2015/11/16/the-expre ... d-animoog/. I've been told that some of the desktop-based sequencers can record/replay Animoog's MIDI messages properly (but never tested it myself), and according to all the feedback I was able to find, there's currently no iOS app that can fully record/replay all of Animoog's expressiveness via MIDI. (and thus the pertinence of this MPE standard) Of course directly recording audio with Animoog's 4-Track works fine.

That said, don't let this stop you: Animoog is a *great* synth well worth its price. (if price really is an issue, I usually mention discounts over Animoog.org , that's where you'll also find a list of over 1,800 presets for Animoog!)

Welcome to the marvellous world of Animoog Stelvio! :-) -- Alex / Satri
Animoog Beta Tester | Free albums of Animoog & Model 15 solos on animoog.org/satri/ | satri.bandcamp.com | Theremini | ROLI Seaboard RISE 49 | iPad Pro 12,9" | Alex / Satri

Stelvio
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by Stelvio » Thu Dec 17, 2015 2:09 pm

First thanks a lot for the quick answer, I'm honored to hear from Moog's engineering team in person :) and happy someone actually understands what I'm looking for, I've been looking around for such features for quite some time, thank you Alex for pointing out the useful links. I'm getting Animoog tonight, I guess I won't sleep much :!:

Slightly disappointed it's not possible to use automation and fine tune polyphonic legatos in my DAW (yet),
but I see there is hope :) I can totally imagine (especially if the project is run by MOOG, Apple and Roli) developers implementing this in the future, which I hope will be soon. I'll totally promote that. Apple being involved probably means Logic will have it, Bitwig should react fast too? Oh I really hope Ableton follows.

I'm confused though, how can a DAW like Ableton today handle this mighty multidimensional data since the new MPE protocol isn't implemented within the sequencer yet?

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gbevin
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by gbevin » Fri Dec 18, 2015 10:09 am

Hey Stelvio,

Following your message, I took a look at the current state of Animoog's poly-legato support and found a problem. Thanks for putting it on my radar. We've fixed and improved the poly-legato support and submitted an Animoog update to Apple. I hope it will soon be approved for distribution in the app store. It will not yet do exactly what you want due to the lack of poly-pitchbend with the MPE spec, but it will behave much better for polyphonic legato playing without retriggering envelopes.

About your other questions, BitWig was the first DAW to implement MPE, so it's fine and working well. Cubase has had Note Expression for years, which is compatible with MPE, so that's covered too. Apple it working on Logic and Ableton has expressed interest to support it in Live in the future.

Take care,

Geert
Geert Bevin
Software Engineering Manager
Software Product Manager
Moog Music, Inc.

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dysamoria
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by dysamoria » Thu Dec 22, 2016 9:16 pm

Are there any updates on this subject?

Is the Model 15 MIDI output the same as the Animoog MIDI output?

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gbevin
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by gbevin » Fri Dec 23, 2016 5:46 am

dysamoria wrote:Are there any updates on this subject?

Is the Model 15 MIDI output the same as the Animoog MIDI output?
There have been no changes, polyphonic legato MIDI messages are handled the same in Animoog and Model 15 and they're compatible, they can control each-other. Both Animoog and Model 15 support incoming MPE messages, so they're great synths for per-note control. We're waiting for the MPE spec to be finalized to evaluate if we can add output MPE support.

Take care,
Geert Bevin
Software Engineering Manager
Software Product Manager
Moog Music, Inc.

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dysamoria
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by dysamoria » Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:51 pm

Thanks for the information. i hope the MPE specification is finalized soon. i hope it's not dependent on the perpetually 2 years away MIDI2 standard...

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dysamoria
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by dysamoria » Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:18 pm

Any news here? GeoShred just got MPE controller output, but I don't own GeoShred and I DO own Moog Model 15...

Nicobaba
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by Nicobaba » Wed Jul 11, 2018 6:24 am

Hello, I am a new Animoog player and lover, it's so fantastic !
Unfortunately I can't record with cubase the portamento/legato/slide style of animoog... Is it because the MPE output has not yet been integrated in animoog ?
Thanks

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dysamoria
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by dysamoria » Sat Jul 21, 2018 7:59 pm

Well, the MPE specification has been finalized...

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dysamoria
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by dysamoria » Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:38 am

Any news on this?

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dysamoria
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Re: Polyphonic Legato midi message

Post by dysamoria » Fri Mar 01, 2019 10:49 am

Anyone?

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