Moog Music Forum

It seems that my Muse doesn't respond to aftertouch at the moment.
Since it's not a function I use very often I don't know if this was already the case before the update,, but I'm almost sure it was working before I updated to the latest OS.
The Midi monitor responds to pressing aftertouch and reads "CC: 64, 0" When pressed and "CC: 64, 127" when released.
Since I am not an expert in the technical details of MIDI I could oversee something or do something wrong.

Tom_1970 wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2025 6:58 am It seems that my Muse doesn't respond to aftertouch at the moment.
Since it's not a function I use very often I don't know if this was already the case before the update,, but I'm almost sure it was working before I updated to the latest OS.
The Midi monitor responds to pressing aftertouch and reads "CC: 64, 0" When pressed and "CC: 64, 127" when released.
Since I am not an expert in the technical details of MIDI I could oversee something or do something wrong.

I saw a post that talked about how the expression for aftertouch isn't very expressive but you can add slew to it to make the onset more gradual.

My Muse is responding fine to aftertouch, which I use a lot. Gordon Reid in his Sound on Sound review mentioned the after touch response was not to his taste, but adding a slew helped. But I haven't felt the need to do that.

Derek Cook wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2025 1:56 pm My Muse is responding fine to aftertouch, which I use a lot. Gordon Reid in his Sound on Sound review mentioned the after touch response was not to his taste, but adding a slew helped. But I haven't felt the need to do that.

My experience with the aftertouch, and version 1.3 did not fix this, is that the response is flat, flat, flat, and then jumps to a relatively high value. So if you want to do subtle stuff you're kinda boned. The slew solution is a band aid.

I did some experimentation this morning in Cantabile (the MIDI hub in my live rig amongst many other duties it does) where I can have a separate MIDI monitor window for different inputs, so I setup MIDI monitors on all of my keyboards

• Moog Muse
• Yamaha Montage M7
• Korg Kronos X61
• ASM Hydrasynth Deluxe
• Novation Summit
• Sequential Prophet X
• Arturia Polybrute 12

And played and observed to see what the aftertouch response was for each keyboard.

I find the Moog Muse to be quite close to my Kronos, Summit and Prophet X in that you do a little bit of a firm prod to start off the aftertouch, but I don't see it reacting differently value wise compared to the other synths and I do find it controllable for my personal needs and preference.

The Montage required slightly less pressure to activate, and the Hydrasynth and Polybrute required the least pressure, probably due to their very different keybed designs for their Poly Aftertouch.

Aftertouch is really important to me as I usually play with both hands on the keyboards, so I usually have no hand free for mod wheels, but I do not want after touch triggering accidentally. So a firm push to start it is fine for me. (I do have a Roland FC300 MIDI Foot Controller with its two built in expression pedals and I also have a third expression pedal connected, so I also use my feet a lot, but that is more for volume, filters, Montage Superknob position, Hammond Leslie speed switch, etc.).

So in summary, I am personally finding Muse aftertouch to be comparable to what I am used to with my other keyboards with Channel Aftertouch.

I am of course NOT saying "I am right, you are wrong", just experimenting, reporting and qualifying why I personally am happy with the Muse aftertouch response.

We all may have different playing styles and preference of course which is a factor in this and how we find the Muse aftertouch, so there is no one answer.