Liking What You Hear*: MPE Instruments

May the fourth and fifth fingers be with you...

Y’know how the display tech is primitive in Star Wars, and the monochrome screens and chunky buttons coexisting with hyperspace travel feels oddly anachronistic compared to our “real world”? I reckon that’s the situation we have with the slow advancement of MPE (MIDI/Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression). In an era of so many other “science fiction is now!” innovations, the MPE protocol has faced an uphill trek due to multiple fronts: the need for education, the expenses to manufacture compatible hardware, software that takes advantage of it, etc… but it’s finally getting here.

Truth is: MPE’s like one of those slow-burn films all your friends tell you is worth immersing yourself into, because it features an underdog against insurmountable odds, it’s got amazing atmosphere and storytelling along the way, and it totally sticks the landing — and we haven’t even reached the conclusion.

Some digit-luddites folk say MPE is a gimmick, to which I point them back to almost 50 years ago, when Vangelis got his godly hands on a Yamaha CS-80, and thanks to all the rampant cyberpunk influence of Blade Runner, the world was never the same since. Now how does that connect the dots? The CS-80 featured polyphonic aftertouch, a direct ancestor to today’s MPE — the lingo means each finger gets its own independence, so pressing down one key doesn’t affect the sound of your fingers on other keys. And each dimension can do something different, so you can apply pressure to make a saxophone blow, or shake a key to make the sound squeal wildly. If you’re unfamiliar, this gets it across in less than a minute:

Overall, it seems really basic, as in fundamental. Like, when you operate other tools, your hands aren’t like those Lego minifig C-shapes — you can actually make use of each finger. But hey, this ain’t uncommon in the audio world. We’re just getting ‘round to MIDI 2.0, and there’s like a 40-year difference between that and 1.0.

The best use of a tool is often when a child can handle it, because humans call that “intuitive”. And for a long time, MPE got strange looks because it was relegated to some nerdy hacker’s domain (great for the geeks, scary to the general populace). For instance, it took a key partnership of Expressive E x Haken Audio to honor the latter’s legacy and transform their labyrinthine EaganMatrix into a shiny new piano-adjacent instrument, the Osmose. In doing so, they solved multiple problems: it doesn’t look as alien as the Haken Continuum, and it plays almost like a piano. Plus, if you want to go further and press down or wiggle side-to-side, now you can, and we might call it a Piano+ (or going by Apple’s naming scheme, an iPiano Pro Max). The learning curve is a leisurely slope, aside from the keys feeling springier. You get instant feedback as you play, so you can adapt as you go along.

Another notable difference progressively happened as “big names” threw their hat in the ring a la ye olde tipping point, lending legitimacy to MPE. When it got ratified in 2018, that increased confidence in the standard, and it tickled me to no end when Ableton Live 11 declared “We’re officially MPE” in 2021, ending years of confusing channel-rotation workarounds (yeah, I see you). This of course followed Logic Pro, Bitwig Studio, and Cubase, all of which who’d adopted it earlier… now others need to catch up!

What’s awesome with MPE is if you don’t want to use the additional dimensions, you can always fall back to the old way. But color me excited whenever something does more out-of-the-box. For example, GForce Software’s synths are great for this, they’re heavily pro-aftertouch/MPE, and I can count on them to imbue most of their factory patches with that charm. It feels great to sink my fingers into a TVS Pro bass and hear it sizzle, or even load up their Mellotron tribute — the marvelous M-Tron Pro IV — and hear those old tapes get a timbral shift that wasn’t originally possible.

Another keystone here involves using MPE to play modeled instruments that calculate physical-acoustic properties. Iftah’s Pyrah is a wonderful “parallel universe strings”, and it also addresses another advance: I really don’t like memorizing keyswitches (where a set of keys is dedicated to not making sound but changing the articulation, like bowed vs. plucked strings). MPE in some cases can reduce the need for keyswitches, meaning a more authentic representation of your actual playing technique.

MPE makes sound-morphing, brain-to-body micromotions, and other subtle expressions possible. In translating slight and strong gestures alike, it unlocks kinetic energy that would’ve been wasted before, honoring performers who’re passionate about throwing themselves into their work — literally. While Vangelis passed away in 2022, I’d like to know what other early expressive vanguards are doing with MPE, like Jan Hammer or Peter Gabriel. Hans Zimmer (an Expressive E customer) and Jean Michel-Jarre (who’s been an early adopter of each gen) are a couple venerables who’ve embraced it.

When the democratization of music tech is broadly talked about, MPE is another great equalizer, as it also lends itself to alternative controllers that unapologetically don’t follow a piano-look and map their dimensions differently. Finding ways to surpass a traditional keybed’s limitations are where some early MPE roots grew. On that note, I also celebrate ROLI’s heritage, as I started my MPE journey on an OG Seaboard Grand, and while they’re faced business adversities, they continue to find a way forth. ROLI’s Equator2 synth, BTW, plays excellently with Osmose, and I’ve found most synths require minimal tweaking to make them “sit right”.

Looking back, Geert “The Father of MPE” Bevin’s relentlessly collaborative advocacy — for which I’m grateful many times over, ever since he reached out to me in 2010 to tell me about his Eigenharp experiences — has rung true:

In Geert’s own words today:

We really have come a long way and I feel like we're finally in an age where MPE and electronic expressiveness has become the expectation and not the exception, it's so wonderful!

(I embrace this e-lliteration.)

Sources like this and Roger Linn’s continued philosophy have continued to inspire me. When asked about the topic of what makes an instrument successful, Linn put it most elegantly:

Ultimately, I think the answer is that an instrument is successful if it allows musicians to create the most beautiful music with the least effort. Otherwise stated, it should be easy to learn yet difficult to master. Guitar is a good example, having the advantages of good solo expression, chords for playing complete music by yourself, frets for easily playing in tune, and portability. You can learn to play simple chords quickly, yet it provides an upward path to virtuosity for the skilled player.

So, looking forwards and upwards? One of the most powerful things about MPE is being able to turn each finger/voice/note into its own modulation (think of dubstep wobbles and other “shaping the sound”), not needing pre-programmed envelopes (how quickly the sound starts and behaves after that). I instinctively press my finger when I want to wub-wub. It’s delicious for swells, where you play with a light touch then really dig in. And it reduces the amount of tedious step-programming, in favor of realtime improvisation. That’s a big timesaver, the sonic sandbox of exploring ideas live, and I see it as not “just” the future, but also building a spacetime bridge and acknowledging humankind’s first forays into music itself.

* And yes, the title is a Ted Chiang reference.