Release notes
- Added a third red Unusable MPE mode, which is likely the most usable from a musical perspective.
- In red MPE mode, Slide/CC74 opens the filter, while Pressure controls level behavior for more expressive swells. I spent quite a bit of time fine-tuning MPE pressure response, release handling, and falling-pressure smoothing so it plays well with Roli Seaboards, Expressive E Osmose, and Arturia PolyBrute 12 in MPE mode. It includes a tuned breaking point that gives you a snappy attack based on velocity at higher velocities, and full pressure-controlled level swells at lower velocities.
- Improved voice-level visuals so MPE pressure-controlled voices are represented more accurately.
- Fixed slot selection/editing causing sequencer motion to reseed or pause unexpectedly.
- Improved editor responsiveness on macOS after the previous UI throttling work.
- Improved plugin resize constraints.
- Smoothed Resonance and Res Warp changes to reduce clicky fast-control movement.
- Added Versioned Save in the preset browser, with numbered saves like Patch 001, Patch 002.
- Fixed so Mod Osc also follows pitch-bend. (I was quite unsure about this, as it was kind of cool to bend a note and have the mod osc stay static, instant harmonies and all, but that use case was likely less useful for most users. Please let me know if you disagree.)
The new MPE mode
The main feature of this update is the new MPE mode.
The regular mode already made MPE quite expressive, but it also restricted certain patches from working well musically. And the “white unusable” mode was basically just taking the regular MPE mode somewhere more avant-garde, or just more bonkers.
With the new “red unusable” mode, the MPE expressiveness has been narrowed down to a more focused set of parameters. Pressure controls, and adds to, the sustain level. Since most MPE controllers have a bit of a sloppy pressure response, I combined and balanced velocity into the level control as well. So with red mode on, you get a way to play both staccato attacks and soft swells with per-key control. Slide, or CC74, just moves the cutoff, which gives you much more predictable control than in the other modes.
I have made a video showing it off together with foot control (CC4) steering of the slots:
A short video showing the new red MPE mode together with foot control (CC#4) steering of the slots.
Patch versioning
The second feature is versioning in the patch handling.
No, you still will not get manual naming inside the synth UI.
Yes, I am likely more stubborn than I should be.
But this should help those of you who like to work on patches in depth.
If you edit a patch so the dirty marker shows up beside the patch name and press save while versioning is on, it will not overwrite the patch, but save a new version with an increment. So edits to a patch named “Rasmus Boring” will be saved as “Rasmus Boring 001”. And for each save after that, it will increment further. If you go back and edit the original patch and save, it should still follow the increment order.
The setting stays for all instances of the plugin, and across all DAWs, until you switch it again. The button is located at the bottom of the patch browser.
That is all for this time.
There are still some requests for Partials & Discrepancies that I find valuable, and I am trying to solve them in a good way. But I am not sure I will have them ready before my vacation.
Thanks again for all the support!
All the best,
Rasmus