Promoting the Morph for drumming, Sensel has a video showing the use of sticks and mallets on the drum overlay.
They also have drums sampled (Exhale) from a MicroBrute for Live and Bitwig – gratis.
Sensel will be at Superbooth 18 in early May.
Just completed a survey from Sensel with new overlay ideas. One of the ideas was a hexagonal isomorphic music keyboard – laid out where triads and common four note chords get grouped into movable shapes. They had a single slider with it like for modulation, or pitch bend.
I like the idea of being able to get this, at overlay prices ($35).
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Anybody have experience with this?
If so, what are your general thoughts and how is it holding up?
You must be talking to me – i think i’m the only person here using the SM. All alone with this and the Palette Gear stuff, which is really good too.
Palette Gear
I like being able to do custom interfaces.
The Sensel Morph
Definitely rugged. The quality is great. Software is very good. Very sensitive and precise interface.
They are innovating – doing MPE (with any overlay) and Max interface, or the stand-alone kit.
Wish there were more Overlays. I think they will be making more but not sure. Wish there was an easy way to make your own silicone Overlay’s or a service to make customs. But you can use the Innovator’s Overlay it just doesn’t have the raised buttons and the feel.
Changing overlays is incredibly fast and easy as the magnets makes it so you can practically toss the overlays on and they lock to position and automatically identify themselves. Really well done.
Obviously baked into the design is that there is no visual feedback from the interface other than the LEDS at the top, so compare this with the iPad/Android interface apps (Lemur etc) that give visual feedback.
I would not recommend the Piano Overlay, although this is my personal reaction. I don’t like the size, they squeezed two octave into a space that is like an octave and a key in standard key space – i’d rather there be a standard sized one octave keyboard with a modulation slider. (The Piano overlay does do MPE though.)
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Just got one of these. Can the overlays be purchased in UK or even Europe? Bit of a pain having to order from the states
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Buchla Thunder Overlay
West Coast MPE anyone?
Available in April. But they take pre-orders now. I’ve pre-ordered.
This is done in conjunction with Buchla.
The overlay costs almost twice the price of the standard overlay, but i think that is because they bundle it with Arturia - Analog Lab Lite and Bitwig’s Studio 8-Track.
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I got those with my sensel and think they’ve been free with for a while.
Might be more expensive because of the collab, maybe some profits are split.
Tempted to grab it myself
So how you guys liking your morphs? What are you using them for? I want a small MPE controller to use with Bitwig and I’m contemplating trying one of these or a Seaboard Block. Or a Joué when I win the lottery… 
I haven’t ordered any midi overlays yet. I have the keyboard, gamepad and video editor ones. Planned to order the keyboard and MPC but holding of for the thunder now
A few different things.
Finger drumming with the Drum overlay either to Live or to RYTM.
The Sensel Sound Packs are nice for this too.
Using Max (usually with Live) and the music production overlay.
I also have used that overlay with Studio One. I’ve done a little bit with UVI Falcon.
I use the Innovators overlay to work on some product ideas and painted my own interfaces. I won’t go into detail on that. I’ve used both the Raspberry Pi and Max for this. (Bright acrylic paint on thin paper canvas works under the Innovators overlay.)
I really like to hack around and make new interfaces to Live, using Max. I’ve been thinking about Bitwig (for the MPE) with this but haven’t taken the plunge. I’ve thought about the ROLI soft synths too, with the MPE, or even with Arché.
I like the freedom of a multi-function interface that needs no cords (via rechargable battery & Bluetooth) so i can put it on my lap or move it to a table or whatever. I have a Push 2, but again i like the mobility.
I’m disappointed with the piano overlay – it’s my problem, i like keyboards to be full size. I tried but have a Novation SL MkIII and a very nice piano action keyboard so the piano overlay is useless for me.
I’ve considered doing something with the Piano overlay more like a ROLI, but haven’t done it.
I’ve been thinking about the Buchla Thunder interface – most probably to Eurorack hardware, or maybe with Falcon. I’d be interested to see what Sensel does with the Buchla sounds.
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American made, is another thing i like about the Sensel Morph.
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I wish here was a store in a strip mall where I could try all this stuff (Sensel Morph, Joué, etc.) out!
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And they’re hiring – so you could go join them. They’ve grown a lot since i bought the Morph, i only remember about half a dozen faces the last time i looked at their About page. Innovative immigrants is another good thing about American made too.
The people they’re looking to hire looks to me like they have more products underway. A Mechanical, and an Electronics Engineer, and a Process Engineer (for manufacturing), and a Characterization Engineer (which i’d never heard of before – sounds like an experimental materials engineer).
Maybe a larger version of this. Or perhaps it’s something entirely different.
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On their careers page:
Sensel technology will have ever-increasing applications over years to come , including wildly different form factors - non-planar, human shaped, glove, wrist, distributed, large area….and different domains - mobile consumer electronics, medical, automotive, and more yet to discover.
Plus they mentioned touch pressure sensitive displays.
So this is just the beginning.
(What would you do with a pressure sensitive human shaped thing?)
You could try the demo - you can do everything except save (you can even save presets and render clips if you really want to).
Bitwig is the reason I’m keen on trying an MPE controller. I’m thinking that I’m going to bite the bullet on a Seaboard Block and give it a chance. If that leaves me cold I can always try the Sensel Morph, I guess!
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Well, we’ll see when it gets here. Then that 30 day clock starts ticking…!
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Sensel pressure sensitive phone and pad technologies.
What to look forward to, this year. I can see this having all sorts of musical applications.
ADDED: This is NOT the Morph, it is something new Sensel is developing.
I’ve never played a Seaboard so i don’t have that for direct comparison – but you’re right the Morph is extremely expressive and can be configured and used musically in a variety of ways. I have the Buchla interface – that’s currently on my Morph – and like the way it takes me in unexpected directions.
I am looking closely at the Madrona Labs Aalto discount deal (other Morph deals here too) – i had their Kaivo synth (for physical modelling) on my list a year back – the Aalto is similar in it’s modularity. I think they may work pretty well with the Morph.
Looking forward to the combination of this tech with screens, this was my initial idea when I first saw the campaign on Kickstarter. Since I‘m also into lettering the use of real brushes and pens on the surface blew my mind. The iPad with the pencil is the next best thing but this is definitely next level and besides all the other selling points it already had for me the combination with the iPad sealed the deal. Looking forward to try this with Animoog and the concept will work very well with the supported granular synths.
Only bummer was the Paypayl conversion rate (or whoever charges it). 10€ to convert from one currency to an other is pretty steep, especially when a computer does it for everyone involved in miliseconds.