Does anyone have any tips for using the Arturia V Collection with the Osmose?Pitchbend/Vibrato is easy but there doesn’t seem to be settings for the other controls. I’ve had these for a while and never really used them much, but am finding a lot of sounds i like playing with the Osmose.
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A big bunch of them support MPE, although theres also a bunch in the collection that dont. The ones that do support MPE have an option to enable MPE if you use the gear icon to reveal the settings panel over on the right hand side. In this panel you can also find a dropdown + knob or two that allow you to specify which parameters you want MPE Y (CC74) to control. These tend to be labelled as MPE Slide in the Arturia stuff I think. As for the other MPE dimension, pressure (channel aftertouch), this is usually controlled via the same user interface stuff that is used for normal aftertouch in these plugins. Where that is varies a bit per plugin, quite often it is in the advanced section that appears as a new panel at the top of the UI when you press the advanced button. And within this section it tends to be in the modulations or keyboard page, using the aftertouch curve and destination stuff or mod matrix stuff.
There are signs that they might make MPE Y (Slide) a first class modulation source in future, since in their most recent plugin Synthx, they have redesigned the advanced section and MPE slide is now a proper mod source there, just like aftertouch, rather than being relegated to some dropdowns in the settings panel.
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I also just updated the MPE software wiki to add a small bunch of missing Arturia entries and also put the Arturia stuff in alphabetical order.
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Thanks so much for the time, Steve, and detailed response!!!
I’m struggling to get the Synthx to be as expressive and responsive as the Osmose software and others i’ve used (Noisy 2, Current, Phase Plant). It seems like the Y command is the same as the Z and both start immediately, as the note is pressed, not gradually as in the Eagon presets. Arturia doesnt seem to read the full scale of pressure note on through the aftertouch. For example, setting the cutoff as the destination goes right to the highest setting as soon as the key is pressed, whether assigned to pressure or aftertouch.
I am fairly new to MPE, so i might just not understand the settings.
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You should at least be able to monitor Osmose’s output via something like ShowMIDI:
That will give you a good idea of what your synths are responding to, at least.
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You’ve done something wrong but Im not sure what.
In Synthx, you can visually see those signals show up in a graphic of curves, by clicking on the last 2 pink icons in the keyboard section of the advanced section.
What DAW are you using? If its Ableton Live you need to make sure you have MPE ticked for the appropriate MIDI in port in Abletons settings page, and you also need to make sure that MPE is enabled for the synth plugin instance you have on a track - you do this by right clicking on the device title bar in the Ableton interface and making sure ‘Enable MPE Mode’ is ticked in the dropdown menu that appears. Thats in addition to making sure MPE is enabled in the Arturia plugin itself (via the option that appears when you press the gear icon in the plugin).
If those arent the issue then maybe you dont have the Osmose configured properly. If you are connecting Osmose to the computer via USB, make sure you are using the right Osmose port, there are two of them, make sure you are using Port 1 (port 2 is Haken-specific version designed more for the built in Haken engine rather than controlling other synths). Make sure the configuration of Ext MIDI on the Osmose is correct, ie set to MPE mode. By default the first part of the keys travel (called pressure in Osmoses settings UI) will be sent as MPE channel pressure (aftertouch in Arturia plugins UI) and the final part of key travel (called aftertouch in Osmoses settings UI) will send MPE CC74 (MPE Slide in Arturia plugins UI). You should not change these to other messages, but you can swap them round on the Osmose if you would rather have CC74 sent for the first part of key travel and channel pressure sent for the final zone of key travel. The other setting I like to change on Osmose is in the sensitivity-velocity/press section, where I lower the ‘note on’ value to something very small so that note on messages are sent as soon as I touch an Osmose key by even a tiny amount. I would recommend just going back to the MPE defaults on Osmose while trying to find out what your problem is, and only fidddle with them later to suit your own needs once your main problem has been solved. On v2 of Osmose firmware you can save any changes you make to these settings as your own custom ext midi preset on the device for easy future use.
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An image of the Ableton Live MPE setting that I mentioned in previous post, the one you get to by right clicking the light blue bar for the synth device in this screenshot.
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Thanks again, Steve. You are very kind and thorough!
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(I don’t believe it’s in V Collection X, but 11 will launch shortly after the Black Friday sale ends, and it should be in that.)
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