I know I wrote last month my home studio is ready. Well it wasn’t back then but now it might be. Since that post I got Make Noise 0-CTRL which I have used all videos since getting it. Latest addition is Native Instrument’s Kontrol S61 mk3. Both have one thing in common. Both let me get more out of gear I already have. You could say they were studio upgrades. 0-CTRL gives touch control to eurorack and Kontrol polyphonic aftertouch to everything else.
Polyphonic aftertouch is mostly talked with Yamaha CS-80 and Vangelis. If you want to know which synths implement it you usually get CS-80 and not much else. Lately Hydrasynth and Waldorf Iridium have been added to list. Keyboards with polyphonic aftertouch are rare but synths capable of handling polyphonic aftertouch are not. Synth manufacturers don’t tell their synth can handle polyphonic aftertouch. You just have to test if it works. I read one manual of synth which can handle polyphonic aftertouch but manual mentioned only channel aftertouch.
This is weird because I have been looking for synths which can do polyphonic aftertouch. Didn’t find any analog polysynths besides Deckard’s Dream but that counts as CS-80 and was too expensive. When I got keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch I learned all analog polysynths in current setup can handle it. Haven’t tested it with Analog Four but I don’t consider it as polysynth. I use it as four monosynths like it was when it was released. I have other synths with more voices when I want polyphony.
So why I am excited about polyphonic aftertouch. It is because it gives you ability to change each note’s sound individually after you have hit the key. With channel aftertouch only way to change individual note’s sound is velocity and it happens when you hit the key. After that everything affects every note. MPE gives addition to polyphonic aftertouch pitch and mod wheels for each notes. But for that you need synth that works with MPE. Those are rarer than synths that work with polyphonic aftertouch. However it is easier to find synths with MPE because there are lists of those synths and everything that works with MPE. There is nothing like that with polyphonic aftertouch.
Polyphonic aftertouch gave new life to synths I had almost given up on. It makes huge difference when you can open filter or add more modulation for individual notes. You can have chords with less modulation and melody with more modulation. You can do that without polyphonic aftertouch but you have to record those parts separately or have two synths if you do it live.