P6 MPE revelation + bugs

[cube48]

After long period of longing for P6 module, I finally got one from a buddy for decent price. Sound's majestic!

My main criteria for getting analog poly was at least some MPE support. And although I knew the MPE modulation is kinda limited on P6/OB6/T6 trinity I went in and so far no regrets here. Deceptive modulation simplicity is weighted out by directness of controls and combinatorial complexity that is hidden behind.

In certain moment I got little sad that the Y-axis (CC74) in MPE mode has just one, max. 2 destinations and expressivity felt little limited. Having a hard value range of 0-127 mapped to i.e. LPF was not really practical. And then it struck me!

My MPE controller is Roger Linn's Linnstrument. Fabulously flexible piece of kit! I configured the Y-axis to generate aftertouch that has much more destinations and most importantly the modulation amount! Linnstrument's Z-axis is then generating CC74 that I've assigned to PW1 on P6. It's awesome! I have more expressive dexterity with Y-axis than with pressure. This way the synth really comes alive!

I encountered two bugs that seem to affect MPE mode only (FW 1.7.5):
- The arpeggiator is not working in MPE mode at all. On/Off button lights up but arp is simply not activated.
- Pitchbends in Unisono mode are broken. Only one voice responds to pitchbend. Also the bent voice remembers the pitchbend value until the next voice retrigger cycle and sounds out of tune (you need to trigger the note 5x if you use all 6 voices in unisono) . Ideally all unisono voices should respond to PB at the same time and they should reset to 0 after Note Off message.

Anyway, I'm very happy with P6 and LS pairing. Still hoping for the remaining MPE bugs being resolved in future FW updates. Big thanks to Sequential team for ongoing work and support!

[cube48]

One more Linnstrument related revelation/workaround that kinda solves the two bugs mentioned above!

The first split on Linnstrument already was in MPE mode, channels 2-7, PB range of 48 semitones. Happy land there (see above) Later on I set up the other split to regular MIDI channel 1. If I want to use unisono or arpeggiator, I simply switch to this split with Switch 2 on Linnstrument and I can use those two features. PB slides are limited to preset's P WHL range of 12 semitones but that's fine. And yay! I'm not left without P6's flexible arpeggiator  Although Linnstrument's arp is no slouch either.