New TouchKeys site launched!

[Andrew McPherson]

Hi everyone,

I'm happy to say that we've just launched a new and much improved TouchKeys website: http://touchkeys.co.uk

The site features a new demo video made by Mind the Film (mindthefilm.co.uk) and featuring performances by Matt Robertson (onesevenfive.com): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNxacJZXPic

This will also mark the launch (at last) of the MIDI Standalone boards. If you have already been in touch with me about being a beta tester, I will get in touch with you in the next couple days about the next steps as I have a handful of boards ready to go out for testing. More stock of those boards will be coming in January. Also keep a lookout for a new software release in the January timeframe. MPE support is on the todo list amongst a few other updates.

Best wishes,
Andrew

[Andrei Kudryavtsev]

Hi Andrew, very nice to see new web site, how is about standalone board availability? I see pre-orders open. Being interested in that for a long time, I lost track of supported features. Can you please explain what's going to be supported and the differences between SW conversion and standalone? 

Thank you for all!  

[Andrew McPherson]

Hi Andrei,

Thanks for the message. The MIDI standalone boards will be ready to ship in January. I've got a small handful of early production boards now, and I'll be in touch individually with people who indicated an interest in beta testing the MIDI feature. 

In terms of support, the main mappings are there: Vibrato, Pitch Bend and Control, and they have a similar set of capabilities. For example, Control supports different inputs (X and Y position, size, 2-finger measurements) and the different modes (absolute and relative). A few of the more obscure details in the software version of the Control mapping may not be there but all the big ones like range scaling are. 

The vibrato mapping is actually a bit ahead of the software in that it supports differing widths on black and white keys. The software should catch up to that in the next release I hope.

The MIDI standalone option supports single-channel and multi-channel MIDI modes. The settings are all adjusted by MIDI CCs. It comes preloaded with some presets, including which CCs are used to adjust the parameters. Those presets can be edited by hooking it up to a USB-MIDI converter on your computer and loading a control interface in Google Chrome (it's not too pretty yet but it works). You switch between presets with MIDI Program Change messages.

One thing that's not yet there is USB MIDI (the standalone mode uses 5-pin DIN ports). In principle I believe this is possible, but it is a fair amount of work and the point of the standalone mode is to not need a computer, so it is lower down the priority queue.

I'll keep you posted on features and use cases as they develop. Feedback is definitely welcome too.

Best wishes,

Andrew

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[Marcel Krol]

Good news about the stand alone boards. The new site looks great as well.

2 small questions:

Is Split keyboard supported?

How many "memory" it has for storing settings/presets?

Best regards,

Marcel Krol

-------- Oorspronkelijk bericht --------

Van: Andrew McPherson <andrew.p....@gmail.com>

Datum: 08-12-16 21:45 (GMT+01:00)

Aan: Andrei Kudryavtsev <andrei.ku...@gmail.com>

Cc: TouchKeys <touc...@googlegroups.com>

Onderwerp: Re: [TouchKeys] New TouchKeys site launched!

[Andrew McPherson]

The split keyboard is not (yet) supported on the MIDI standalone version. Right now it holds 8 presets (different combinations of mappings and mono/poly mode), with the settings variable within each preset.  

There are some limitations to how much can be stored or processed on the existing TouchKeys controller, since this standalone upgrade consists of a firmware update for the existing hardware plus a board for sending/receiving MIDI signals. For that reason it will never have as comprehensive a feature set as the computer software, but the idea is to get something that covers the most important use cases which is good for live playing and easy setup.

Another intermediate route worth exploring might be to use an embedded computer as a TouchKeys host. In principle the full TouchKeys software could run, but without needing a laptop. The Bela platform (http://bela.io) also from my research lab might work for that. But I like the cleanliness of keeping everything on the existing hardware, with minimal extra equipment required, so that's what I'm focusing on at the moment.

Andrew

[Palle Dahlstedt]

Hi Andrew!

Great news on the MIDI standalone boards! Essential for me.

Are there any plans to support the MPE standard of polyphonic expression over MIDI, that seems to be supported by a few related products now - McMillens new K-Board Pro and the SeaBoard? Or is this already implemented, but I somehow missed it? Here's a link to the specs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-26r0pVtVBrZHM6VGA05hpF-ij5xT6aaXY9BfDzyTx8/edit#

/Palle

[Palle Dahlstedt]

OK, I realize now that this is already possible to (informally) implement with the current poly mode. Good!

[Andrew McPherson]

Hi Palle,

Yes, the current Polyphonic mode is pretty similar to MPE. That said, I also have plans to add official MPE support in an upcoming software release, hopefully the next release in fact.

Best wishes,

Andrew

[Mark Phillips]

Hey Andrew and all,

Wanted to check in on MPE again. Now that it is standardized and more apps are coming out I'd love to use TK with these instruments... especially if it were supported by an upcoming stand-alone midi board that would let me use it with an iPad and a midi interface for it.

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2018/03/29/9-99-virtual-instruments-sound-mind-blowingly-good/

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2018/03/29/new-mpe-synthesizer-for-ios-volt/

Cheers,

Mark

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[Andrew McPherson]

Hi Mark,

The MPE update hasn't come to fruition yet, sorry to say -- I started it but then ran short of time as happens too often, largely because I continue to share time between TouchKeys and my university job. The software is open source if anyone wants to have a go at it (I'd be happy to advise on questions), otherwise it'll stay stuck in the queue for a while. In the meantime I do believe that the Polyphonic mode of TouchKeys is already sufficient to work with most MPE synths. If anyone has any feedback on MPE synths that do/don't work in this way, that would be useful to hear.

It seems that more and more interesting synth development is happening on mobile platforms. Working with iPad/iPhone would imply a revisiting of the TouchKeys firmware to support MPE MIDI over USB such that it could be connected directly to the phone without a 5-pin DIN interface. (I would have bandwidth concerns about the full sensor bandwidth over a 5-pin DIN cable.) I would love to do something like that, and in principle I think it would be possible, but it's no small time investment so I'd say it's realistically unlikely to be something I do myself. MPE via the software is a more achievable target.

Best wishes,

Andrew

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