Ok, thanks for the feedback!
Yeah, magnet config for custom designed overlays would be great…
I’m also crossing fingers for an official 4th row layout like this.
And in the meantime, I’m going to play expressive synthesizers 
This looks very interesting. I’ve been experimenting with 3d printing overlays using TPU filament on an Ender 3. Unfortunately the print area is a bit smaller than the Morph surface
Here’s an example. I use 5mm x 4mm magnets with blind holes to the base which is 2 x 0.2mm layers for a total of 0.4mm printed on a glass plate to get a mirror-smooth backing.
I can only mount with three magnets because adding a fourth causes the automatic overlay detection to trigger and the Morph then doesn’t recognise the inventory’s overlay. So I found a couple of strips of 0.5mm thick thermal silicone sheet underneath at the top gets the overlay to stick nicely
It’s about as flexible as standard silicone sheet and you get a nice textured top surface. A larger printer like the CR10 would easily print full-sized overlays of course.
Wow I can’t believe it!! I love you @ybr. I have been dreaming of this since the year 2014 as can be seen in this article I even wrote back at that time.
http://tactilemusicpad.surething.biz/2014/01/the-beginning-of-new-musical-instrument.html. At that time sensel.com didn’t even exist and I was looking at what was needed to create a touch pad device like the now available sensel morph just so I could create something like the linnstrument that I saw to be the future of how musical instruments should be. As you might see I never got as far as the dream at that time with my limited resources. But when I saw the sensel morph released I knew I had to have one that I might continue my dream. And now YOU @ybr have gone the next step to simulate the linnstrument. I just want to thank you and the sensel team in bringing my dreams to a reality if not at least close. I only wish you did is a bit sooner but better now than never. So I just want to show my interest and hope that the sensel team goes on to support this project with an added overlay at some point. I will put in some of my time to play with my new toy with what I already now have and try to feedback any input if I have anything to add. There are also a few other instruments like the linnstrument that at some point we might like to try simulate but for those we should start another thread. To other members who have not already commented in this forum, I suggest you just add your nod of support to this or any other 3rd party development you see as creative and constructive like this one to help motivate it to move to next level. OK Keep up the good work you all and THANKS again. If you ever come to Pattaya Thailand I’ll glad to buy you a beer in my appreciation.
an official linnstrument-style/4th strings isomorphic layout overlay would be a dream come true for me, making my own as a cheaper alternative to the linnstrument was the main reason why im interested in the morph, so i’d definitely be interested in an official overlay in the future
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Hey, just wondering if this type of grid layout allows for both bi-polar and uni-polar Y-axis modulation. And also if it is relative as opposed to absolute. On the linnstrument I found that bi-polar up/down modulation is a bit too sensitive, however uni-polar works well because you have the downwards are as a non modulation safety zone (because it’s relative from where you first touched it). So to not modulate you just make sure to keep it at or below where you first strike and then can modulate positively upwards (like a modwheel).
Can the sensel do that in this layout? Thannks in advance!
Yes, both possible, there is a “recenter cc” option as well as absolute/relative toggles for x and y individually.
Cool, so you can have relative and uni-polar? So wherever you first strike gives a 0 value for cc74 and it only increases upwards?
Not checking “absolute” (thus: relative) and not checking “recenter cc” should give you this effect if you then only move your finger from left to right or down to up. So it’s not really uni-polar in that regard, if you move the finger in the opposite direction then the value decreases again.
I thought with bi-polar you meant that it decreases when touching left from the center and increases when touching right from it (it doesn’t, afaik in relative mode only the moving direction is important, not the initial touch point)
I have now got this 12x6 linnstrumen/mpe grid working on my Linux Mint version 19.3 Tricia. I have to say I have now spent hours playing with it and consider this package with this template to be my new most favorite toy. I find the interface so intuitive that I’ve been able to learn how to play it better in just 2 hours than what it took me 2 years to learn how to play a slide guitar that this in a way simulates. I’ll go into some basic details of what I used to make use of this 12x6 template and the sensel morph within Linux mint for FREE bellow for those that are interested. I found that one of the best free synths now available that supports MPE is a vst synth called Surge Synth (google it). You can even find a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-mKyShEvKg video that shows Linn Rogers demonstrating the use of the Surge Synth with a real Linnstrument (he loves it). With this plugin used in Ardour digital audio workstation it is the perfect match and it’s totally free. I tried many other free synths and found most don’t support MPE and the ones that do well are no match to this Surge synth. There are a few bugs I had to work around to get the 12x6 template to work with the Surge at least to get the Y access value to work. I had to change from cc74 to cc71 that is by default used for timbre setting on the Surge Synth. I spent over an hour on the surge synth side to try to configure cc74 to do something but failed. Could be I’m not doing something correct on the Surge synth side, but my final solution was to just change the value on the morph template side. I also noted that other MPE patches on the Surge Synth all by default seem to be using the cc71 value so it might have been a good move anyway. I should also note that the Surge Synth has some presets designed by Linn Roger himself for the linnstrument. I note on his preset that he makes use of the Y access value that he had cc74 labeled on the synth but ended up using cc71 in his preset to drive some Y value from his synth. So I’m not sure that’s his default is normally cc71 for Y access values or not (as I’ve never seen a real Linnstrumen) but that’s what he used on the Surge Synth patches in this case. So I’ll upload my small changed version of the 12x6 template That I’m now using for those that want to try this on a Surge Synth. I’ll also note I tried a few other mods on the morph template mapping side with the sensitivity value but ended up setting them back to what @ybr had chosen that is 3, but at this point I’ve only tried one other value being 0 so at some point I’ll try a few other values and save them as maps so I can switch them with ease to try them all on different synths. As far as the image on the overlay for now I’m just printing a paper overlay and taping it around the sensel morph. I don’t think this will last very long with my fingers going over it so much. Just 4 hours of play and it’s already almost time to change it. I plan to purchase the dev overlay from sensel and see what I can do with that. I also plan to try putting some thin 2mm mouse pad that I will write on with a pen or have a custom one printed ( I see custom printed mouse pads run at about $22USD in online stores) if this looks to work. I will upload the pdf file I used to print the paper template I’m now using as I couldn’t find any output from the overlay app to create anything. I made it from a screen capture of the overlay page and edited it with Gimp graphics editor to scale it to the correct size when A4 paper is used. What I also found I need is some kind of thimble on my fingers to make my paper template last longer and to make my fingers slide easier over the surface of the template. The quick short term solution I just put clear tape over the tips of my fingers and tried small plastic bags also but we will have to look for some more long lasting solutions in the future (another thread?). One other thing I will add is that after I updated the firmware on the Sensel morph I can’t get the morph to work in Bluetooth mode for anything even my android phone. This was working at least for the the keyboard overlay but not anymore for anything not sure why (didn’t try window 10 yet). I would love to try this 6x12 template on some MPE synths I found on android but to try that I will need to get Bluetooth mode to work again on the Sensel Morph. If I got that to work I could be totally mobile with my cool 40watt boom box driven from my android phone that all fits in a small backpack and my pocket. What fun we will be having in the near future with my mobile Pataya beach band. I should also note the problem I had with the overlay app on Linux to start it didn’t work until I updated the firmware on the Sensel morph in windows 10 first. After the firmware update the Linux version of the overlay map app seems to work fine. Oh not quite fine as it seems I had to create a clean default user to get the sensel overlay map to detect the morph on my Linux box on both older and new LTS versions of Linux Mint. I think I’ll create another thread with These details about Linux and the Surge synth and other synths and repositories used as a branch to another thread as it’s not so relevant to this project and can be useful across many other Sensel overlays. Ok that’s it from me for now. Have fun you guys and keep up the good work.
Seems I could only upload my modified senselmap. I guess I’ll try link the paper overlay pdf file in some other way later. Ask me if anyone really needs it.
6x12_bends_y_cc71.senselmap (8.0 KB)
I created this google drive directory that I put all the files I am now playing with for this project:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TsvPq96RlNkGpIVSmhjChqlHmZOI6Wle?usp=sharing
also I got a neoprene 1mm thick mouse pad at a local store here for $0.60 (20 baht thai money) that I made into an overlay as a prototype. It feels real good to have some touch feedback now and my fingers slide on it very nice. it’s a little different and will take some getting used to. Also the material was just a bit short on one side so I had to splice it at one end that make not so good for sliding across on the right side but good enough to experment with. At this point I’ve only spent about 10 minutes play time on it so I’ll update how it goes on the long run.
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Test morphs USB midi on android xaiomi note 6 using 12x6 Linnstrument/MPE Grid
I just happened to find that I have a USB normal to mini adapter sitting in my drawer that will allow me to plug the sensel morph directly into my android phone port. Didn’t even know I had one around. I had attempted to get Bluetooth midi to work with the sensel morph but failed and I note others have been having similar problems with it on several platforms on sensel.com forum so I’ll have to wait for them (Sensel) to fix that at some point. But after just a few minutes it looks the USB midi works right out of the box, at least I see midi data from the morph’s 12x6 template on the phone using some test software called midiscope https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobileer.example.midiscope. So next is to see if I can find a synth that it can drive. This synth also works but not very good sound and not MPE https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobileer.midisynthexample. But now we know there is hope.
OK I finally found it the DRC synth https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imaginando.drc. It seems to be fully supporting the MPE mode out of the morph in linnstrument mode with the USB interface. The first default sound made no sound so I didn’t think it worked but tried a few others using it’s internal keyboard to test it and finally found it was working with another sound patch. So I will have to spend some time on this one but today my phones battery is dead and I need some sleep so there is always tomaro.
Ok sleeps over and time to play. I found the first patch I plan to be playing with on the DRC synth called “Sabatage” using the 12x6 Linnstrument/MPE Grid. From here it’s just a mater of a few hours of play to see how stable this app is and how long my phone will run on a single charge with the Morph running off of it. Stay tuned for updates. Oh yes and I did purchasing this app as to me it’s worth it for about $10.
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Nice work, at which locations do you place the magnets? At the round or square magnet positions of the innovrators overlay? I would like to try this as well, magnets for fastening and automatically let it select the innovators overlay because it thinks there is no overlay on it.
Awesome experimentation!
I was able to make a 12x6 overlay with a Cricut machine. The first try turned out a bit messy, but I am confident I can perfect it with another go. More info in the Making Overlays with Cricut topic.
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Are you sure about this cc71 issue on Surge? I’ve been involved with Surge Synth for over a year now, mostly contributing on the Linux side of things. I ran this by the team on our Slack channel and the response was that MPE uses cc 74.
Apparently there is no setting for Timbre MIDI CC, it’s just 74.
Could it be that you are confusing things with the 8 macros?
Could you open a ticket on GitHub?
Thanks!!! Does anyone have the template in the form that is needed to upload to PONOKO ?
I would like to know as well?
It is true, I’ve just tested it, as Timbre was not working for me. After I set it to cc71, it works. Here’s from the Surge manual:
Timbre is a modulator used primarily for MPE controllers. It takes the midi CC#71 (timbre) and applies it as a voice-level as opposed to scene-level modulation source. This allows the MPE convention of one-note-per-channel to take an otherwise scene-level midi parameter (CC#71) and turn it into a voice-level modulator.
Would be nice if they followed the convention of using cc 74. Thanks
nice job. i am using your template as a starting point and plan to use
4 x 4 color felt squares cut to fit key size under innovator overlay.
$6.48 for the felt. thinking about some 3d printed grid to be able to use by feel.
colors are modified from
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Just got mine today, and this thread is what sold me on the Morph. I was hesitant, and had low expectations, but I uploaded the patch at the start of this thread, cut a piece of paper, measured and drew a grid, slapped it in the innovator’s overlay, and had instant success (using Pigments). It works incredibly! I have to believe Sensel is gonna release an overlay like this! In the meantime, I’ll keep enjoying my hand drawn one and thanks to the original poster inspiring and sharing.
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Nice!!! Really happy to hear that, Mike. Welcome aboard!
