MPE, MIDI Polyphonic Expression, can make playing digital instruments expressive in ways we’ve desired for decades. It’s just down to understanding everything you can do – and composer Josh Madoff has a fantastic tutorial and Osmose demos that make this technology more accessible to anyone.
Once you’ve added velocity-sensitive keys, aftertouch/pressure, a sustain pedal, a mod wheel, or encoders to your rig, you won’t go back, right? It’s funny; I think MPE is often misunderstood. Adding per-note expression is completely intuitive; applying nuanced pressure is part of how we interact with the world.
Of course, “polyphony” is a music theory term, and then we get into the technical side of this. So that’s why I really enjoyed this video composer Josh Madoff did for Expressive E. He did this on the beautiful Osmose instrument, but he covers various instruments, hardware, and software, too – and the whole point of MPE, like all MIDI, is having it work across the whole ecosystem.
Maybe it’s even disingenuous just calling this a video about performance, because it’s about the link between performance, sound design, and composition, all at once.
It’s nice timing that this came out when it did, as I just talked about MPE (and polyphonic aftertouch/pressure) in AAS Multiphonics CV-3. But it’s worth mentioning that you can turn on MPE across multiple DAWs, instruments, and whatnot. As I mentioned in the AAS review, one unique feature of MPE pitch support is that it also enables Ableton Live Tuning Systems in Live 12.
It’s not just AAS’ modular, either. You can use polyphony and MPE easily in the free and open-source modular VCV Rack, as well. (That also means that if you use the paid Rack Pro as a plug-in – or route MIDI to the free standalone VCV Rack – you also get Tuning System support in Rack! I have projects now where I have various instruments running side by side with the same Tuning System leading.)
As a reminder, you turn this on in the MIDI > CV module in Rack. Right-click the module, set Polyphony channels to a number greater than 1 (for the number of voices), and set Polyphony mode to MPE:
Expressive E has a set of particularly well-loved soft synths with MPE support, too, which they’ve then expanded with extra MPE presets: their own Noisy 2, the Legend HZ Expressive Suite, Phase Plant Expressive Suite, and Urs Heckmann’s Hive 2. (My students are bugging me to use those last two more, so I’m on it, I guess!)
There is an entire video series from Josh where he talks about film scoring, performance, Osmose, and more, if you follow that first video. He also did this excellent deep dive at ContinuuCon – the mecca for fans of expressive controllers including the titular Haken Continuum that started it all:
And speaking of ContinuuCon and Continuum, Josh also shows one way to think about counterpoint on the Continuum – even if you might not have considered that on something that looks ribbon controller-related:
He also has broken down his sound and music work on Nuevo Rico:
And now that you’ve waded through this story about MPE, why not chill out with this tranquil, enchanting undersea animation from Gobelins Paris, Little Sea Death: