So, in today’s good news an email from Soniccouture and it’s MPE support for their ONDES Martenot Kontakt instrument!!
Will give an opinion as I have this and used it quite extensively.
MPE gaining traction
Soniccouture Ondes
interesting!, Id love to hear more of what you think about it … as I liked the idea of it, but was a bit unsure on the control mechanics.
in someways, I wonder if MPE is the ‘right way’ for this?
when I last looked at this, I was wondering about using the Soundplane + Keyboard as a combo.
where the soundplane would emulate the 'instrument panel + tutti etc and then the keyboard would be the keys. ie. try to mimic the ondes control layout - as surely this is part of its ‘character’ ?!
of course, have MPE as an additional option is still very attractive!
its also great that SonicCouture have MPE on their radar, that bodes well for the future!
btw: theres also a 30% discount for a few weeks … so even more tempting!
I’ve always loved SonicCouture’s libraries, but always bought the Ableton version. (I regret that decision)
This does not bode well for my wallet.
Happy to see the mention here!
I am looking at ways of implementing MPE on some other of our instruments, specifically Sheng/Sho and the Nyckelharpa, both of which I think would benefit greatly from it. It’s not always easy, Kontakt doesn’t happily support MPE yet, so it’s a lot of workaround… which is easier on some instruments than others.
Anyway, if you guys have any questions about it, I’m happy to try to answer.
cheers,
Dan from Soniccouture
Currently using Linnstrument and (as of yesterday) Continuumini.
Ohh so sorry, can’t seem to catch up. I planned some “quality” to play SC Ondes Martenot MPE, still not happened ;-( although I have tried it (and its now always close by)
I’m a huge fan of everything SC so…
Its beautiful to play it on the LinnStrument as it so so sensitive /well balanced, same on the ContinuuMini
Sound wise you get lots of detail not only from oscillators but also “diffuseur” - loudspeakers, (can be CC controlled using host or MIDI automation)
Even with all trickery (under the hood) its a great move and implementation to have! Hats off to Soniccouture
-.-
Nice to have you aboard @Dan, oh and congrats on the Mini also
Ha! I was considering getting the Soniccouture pan drums, then noticed the very tempting 80% off sale on the premium bundle, decided against it because of the lack of MPE. And then right afterwards saw this (I had forgotten about it) when looking for some other old thread. Sometimes it feels like the cosmos itself is conspiring against my wallet. Ah, well. bundle it is, then. Fingers crossed for more MPE support down the line.
Kai raises a very good point. In light of the sale, were you able to add MPE support to those yet? =)
(I’m taking stock of which libraries I own in the wrong format, and how much of the premium bundle I actually own in Kontakt. And also evaluating whether or not I can sacrifice the hard drive space for any of this. But knowing there was even some workaround MPE support would help a lot, for me!)
Sorry no, only the Ondes so far. It’s really tricky in Sheng/Sho actually… there’s a five way crossfade for dynamics that’s already rather involved.
For my own use, I have made multis of some instruments in Kontakt. For example with Sheng, I assigned Z to the “breath pressure”, and then removed all reverbs and effects and saved that single patch. Then I load the patch 4 times (or more, depending on the poly you need) into a single Kontakt Multi, ie. duplicating the same patch on many MIDI channels, and save that.
You probably know this trick already.
@Kai I’ve got a nice Alpha rig for the Pan drums (a copy of the one you can see Geert using in one of his videos). Happy to share if you want it.
Cool, I’d love that! Yesterday I started looking at what to add to my standard Tau and Alpha rigs. A new keygroup for pan drums would be a nice addition.
I’ve tested this out with the ContinuuMini and it works nicely but then it hit me that the ContinuuMini has an internal patch that sounds quite similar (or even better), is more responsive, can use a “touche region” to emulate the Ondes’ playing style and can be tweaked towards any other sound.
Traditional sampling is clearly not the way to go for these instruments.