POLYPHONIC AFTERTOUCH FULL

POLYPHONIC AFTERTOUCH FULL

It’s easiest seen in the video, but it means you finally get to use the full play of a key as a controller. (You still get the conventional velocity reading and can play normally in that sense – you simply get more data in addition to it.) You can move the key up and down across its full range, or push a little harder, and output a continuous, accurate value.

It uses something the inventors are calling “key swing.” Instead of only the normal velocity measurement, the keys are constantly sampled with optical sensors, you can now do what intuitively it seemed you always should be able to do. And so that can make aftertouch rather unsatisfying. The problem with aftertouch is, you don’t have much play after you’ve pressed the key. (Various historical devices have used everything from keys that wiggle to additional strings and pulleys and ribbons and wheels and … well, this problem just goes on and on.) after you depress a key, keep pressing down to add additional expressive input. The piano continues to do beautiful things with the sound – resonating and such – but you’re no longer involved. Because of the necessity of the way hammers work, your fingers are left holding down keys and doing, well, nothing. On a normal piano, you lose expressive possibilities once you play a note. The cause for something new was straightforward enough. The centuries-old piano keeps fighting back every time someone tries to improve it.Ĭase in point: polyphonic aftertouch.

Polyphonic aftertouch