Testing MPE synths with MIDI Guitar

Many synths are to varying degree MPE compatible, and in these videos I’ve taken it upon myself to present some of the synths I am testing with the next gen MIDI Guitar MPE output , describing some of the findings. I’ll add more as I go, I think, but for now I have tested:

Equator
Diva
Pianoteq 8
Falcon (Expressive E, Ircam Solo Instruments 2, VHorns)
Surge XT
Serum
Cypher 2
Pigments

(Video on Equator and serum is next)
There are a few others that might be included as I go on if there is any interest in those.

Kontakt (Native Instruments - a special case needing an MPE script)
OB-E (Gforce)
Obsession (Synapse)

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What are your favorite MPE patches/synths to recreate various guitar types? I see that you like pianoteq for classical guitar. What about telecaster, for example?
Also, I would guess for Kontakt, its a case by case type thing, as in I doubt something like Getgood drums would have an MPE script?
I’d also be interested to hear your favorite MPE drum synth, ROLI Studio Drums seems okay, but curious if there might be better out there. Thanks in advance!

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It is still too early to tell. I haven’t been able to use these MPE capabilities more than for what you see here really. But sure, Roli’s Equator 2 presets are much better sounding as MPE instruments compared to their regular MIDI versions. And they have a steel string acoustic that I have as default patch right now. I don’t really use Pianoteq for its nylon string sound. If you listen in the video it is more of a synthetic sound, really compressed for my Pat Metheny “Song X” style stuff. But it responds so fantastic, and that is what I love about Pianoteq, and I would be really surprised if they didn’t take that further and came up with all kinds of guitars in the near future.
Haven’t found a great MPE telecaster yet. Any software developers that are making guitar emulation are of course free to hit me up! I’ll be more than happy to try their stuff out!
Surge has some great guitars among the Linnstrument MPE patches you can download for free.

About Kontakt, I don’t have high hopes for any great fully functional MPE instruments coming that way. There is a MPE script you can download and use for really simple siounds or instruments, that at distributes notes with some control over them to several MIDI channels in s way similar to what the MPE protocol suggest. But it feel very clunky, and there is not very much control to talk about. I have one MPE library for Kontakt, Slate + Ash AURAS, and while it sounds great it feels rather limited as far as a MPE instrument goes.
I don’t have a favorite drum synth to begin with, period! And I don’t think I will pursue the beatmaking path with my MIDI Guitar setup. It just hasn’t been anything I have even looked at yet. And I am getting old, fast :grinning: But I would gladly watch other brave MIDI Guitar users explore that avenue. So, please, tell me about your best MPE findings whenever you get the chance. :+1:

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I haven’t really used MG2 for drum sounds, but who knows with MG3. I’ve tried Artiphon Orba 1 and ROLI Lightpad Block with ROLI Studio Drums MPE which wasn’t really to my liking, but hoping to eventually try a Embodme Erae Touch with MPE drums, but will see. It’s an expensive piece of equipment for sure for something I may not end up using lol. It looks like with Erae Touch, you can use drum sticks or use your fingers for input. I think I would mostly be using it to make very sensitive intensity to make MPE drum sounds more realistic than the normal MIDI/electronic drum kits but who knows I guess lol. Sometimes just experimenting with this stuff can create some great unexpected sounds also. Another idea I saw elsewhere was to make the MPE influence timbre instead, which could be interesting.

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Thanks for such detailed videos.

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