The Playing menu gives access to advanced features that interpret your raw playing gestures in intelligent ways. After accessing the Playing menu with the fourth Menu button, turn Value Encoder 1 to choose either Pressure Glide, the Arpeggiator, or no playing feature at all.

If a playing feature is activated on a preset, a press glide or arp icon appears on the left side of the screen and will remain visible also in the factory and user tab of the presets menu:

 

 

Freeze Playing function

Pressing the Tab Selector in Playing Menu switches the Playing Freeze ❄️ on and off. When Freeze is enabled, the current playing settings will be kept across preset changes, no matter what is saved in the user preset you dial up.

 

pressure glide

 

The Pressure Glide feature lets you define a pitch interval within which two keypresses are interpreted as a legato line instead of polyphonic playing. 

 

Unlike regular portamento, which makes the pitch glide to a new note within a fixed amount of portamento time, Haken Audio’s Pressure-weighted Portamento reacts to the pressure ratio between the two notes. The pitch will dynamically glide between the notes in real-time, reacting to how you distribute pressure between them. You will need to release the first note completely to make the pitch arrive at the second note.

 

Feel free to watch the dedicated section on Pressure Glide in Osmose’s Quick Start Video to better understand how Pressure Glide works.

 

 

 

ℹ️ Important note when intending to play chords with Pressure Glide activated:

Two notes pressed simultaneously within the interval that you have set will always be joined into one pitch. For instance, with a pressure glide interval of 2 semitones, you can play chords with stacked thirds or wider voicings, but as soon as you play seconds, you will end up with one note with an averaged pitch instead of two discrete notes.

While in Playing menu, activate or deactivate Pressure Glide with a click on the Parameter Selector.

 

arpeggiator

 

Arpeggiators usually trigger all notes with the same intensity, often resulting in a somewhat mechanical, monotonous sound. Osmose’s MPE arpeggiator takes advantage of the fact that the instrument knows the exact position of each key at every given time. When playing the arpeggiator pattern, Osmose continues to take into account all three axis motions of the Augmented Keyboard Action keys: Pressure, Aftertouch, and Bending. It means that you can highlight single notes within your arpeggiator sequence just by pressing them differently from the others.
 

choose tab : load an arpeggiator preset

adjust tab : set the arpeggiator parameters

assign tab : let gestures and controllers modulate arpeggiator parameters

save tab : save the current arp settings as an arp preset

 

▶️⏸️ You can start or pause the Arpeggiator with a click on the Parameter Selector.

 

choose tab

 

The first tab of the arpeggiator is the 'choose' tab, giving access to the arpeggiator presets. The currently loaded arp preset is highlighted in yellow. Turn Value Encoder 4 to select another preset. With Value Encoder 2, you can filter between the factory arp presets and your own user arp presets. 

💡 To discover the arp presets and their interactions, we suggest loading a polyphonic flute or brass sound, or another preset with a rather short attack and release. It will be a good start to understanding how your gestures can modulate the arpeggiator.
💡 If you want to switch sound presets while keeping the same arp settings, use the freeze playing function.

 

adjust tab

 

The ‘adjust’ tab contains all the arpeggiator parameters:

 

• hold will make sure that the notes you press will continue to be triggered even when you let go of the keys. It will remember the maximum pressure applied to each key. The note repertoire will only be reset when you have already released all keys and then press a new key.
   
• tempo defines the beats per minute. Pressing the Value Encoder below will switch between synching to an external MIDI clock and using the internal clock. Attention: Osmose is not capable of sending its own internal clock.
•  
• pattern lets you choose in which order the notes are played back.
   
• division defines the note value of one arpeggiator step. It selects a division of the tempo that determines the speed at which the notes are played.
   
• gate determines the length of the notes as a percentage of the duration of one note according to the arpeggio speed.
   
• octave range lets you add multiple octaves above the notes played.
   
• swing allows shifting every second arpeggiator step in time. 100 equals an even playback of all steps. Values above 100 will introduce more and more swing, until, eventually, every second step is joined with the next step. 
   
• ratchet will introduce multiple triggers during one arpeggiator step.
   
• rise & fall will add some inertia to parameter changes, smoothing out fast increases or decreases in value.

 

ℹ When a parameter is controlled by a gesture of a controller (see assign tab below), its value will be grayed out and the modulation source appears in yellow below the parameter. In the picture above, aftertouch controls the gate, and press controls the ratchet parameter.

 

assign tab

 

 

The programmed behavior of a sound preset when it comes to Pressure, Aftertouch, and Bending is also kept when using the Arpeggiator: When you bend individual notes, their pitch will continue to change, and if a sound becomes louder and brighter when pressing it further, then the same will also happen when the Arpeggiator is active.

 

Additionally, the way you press individual notes on the keybed can influence the arpeggiator parameters for that specific note. The ‘assign’ tab lets you set up the parameter mapping for this. Two ‘assign’ slots are available with the following set of parameters:

 

• source selects a motion axis of the key or a controller that will affect the destination parameter. Here, bending to the left and bending to the right are available as separate sources. When using the mod slider or expression pedals as modulation sources, parameter changes will be global (not per-note).
• destination selects the arpeggiator parameter that will be modulated. This includes all parameters listed in adjust tab.
• min sets the minimum value sent.
• max sets the maximum value sent.
• curve changes how resulting values are distributed when the source value goes from min to max. A linear response means values have equal ranges along the curve. If min is set to 1 and max is set to 2, then 2 is already selected when the source control is at 51% (MIDI value 64).

 

save tab

The ‘save’ tab of the MPE arpeggiator allows you to save the current settings of the arpeggiator as an arpeggiator preset that will then show up in the choose tab.

 

To give your arpeggiator preset a custom name, press Value Encoder 1 when the line ‘name’ is selected. Scroll through characters by turning the same encoder. Turn Value Encoder 2 to move the cursor. Once you’re done, validate by pressing Value Encoder 4.