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On that front, I tried finding a whitepaper on the multiplexer chip that takes the board input, to maybe see if that was the source of the problem, but I came up with nada. In both projects, each instrument track is set up to host multiple instruments allowing selection by MIDI controller (using Chain Select in Live, or the X/Y instrument mixing container in Bitwig): you could create a controller mapping for this selection according to taste. Most music and virtual instrument software can now take full advantage of MPE Joué Play Pro for seamless integration into your production environment.
Press one finger on the surface with maximum force, and observe aftertouch messages being sent with the highest possible value. The Joue Play combines an expressive multi-instrument, an intuitive application and interactive content to practice. I’ve been wanting something like a groovebox but the Joué has enough lateral accuracy without a pad to have a decent interface. My main critique of Joué is that simply making the limits transparent to players like us would have gone a long way in fully utilizing our boards, regardless of firmware limitations.
On my device this cause a ‘tug of war’ - as pressure of the second finger increases, the aftertouch value from the first finger starts to fall. Up to eight tracks can be used per project, and users can set tempo, loop length, and instrument tuning (the guitar pad offers alternative tunings like drop C).
There are settings for each element but I think the elements are hardcoded as areas in the firmware. Equipped with a pressure sensitive multi-touch sensor, the Joué Play draws its unique expressiveness from an expertise developed with its ancestor the Lemur, pioneer of multi-touch controllers.This starts an inertia function which then calculates the true values by looking at the number of inputs, increasing it by some appropriate factor, and subtracting it or adding it based on the last inputs. With an increasing number of DAWs and instruments supporting MPE, which lets you control more than the standard MIDI controllers allow, it’s one of the few hardware controllers that can do it, and also one of the most affordable. You can't rotate the module (to get the buttons at the bottom, for instance): the Joué expects all the controls to be in a specific orientation.
The controller modules worked well, especially the bubbles, but without visual indication of state, the various octave and mode buttons felt less useful. For example, the piano doesnt detect the upper B key correctly and, when pressed, It makes It sound one semitone lower. In fact, the higher value is close to the numerical limit of 14-bit MIDI pitch-bend messages, and Joué tell me they'll support the true upper limit in a software update. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the time, energy, or money to innovate, but I would love to see a product using the same idea behind the Joué, but usable in standalone.In addition to that I’ve taken it apart to see what’s under the hood: surprisingly solid wood and solid construction. The guitar pad is interesting, especially for non-guitarists, giving you a whole new way to play guitar parts. Adjust the tempo of your song, or the volume of each track directly from the app or go even further by experimenting with in-app effects that can be controlled on your pads. For more experienced players, there’s the MPE functionality and this is one of the most affordable ways to get into the MPE control world. The device is versatile, allowing numerous configurations combining keyboard and MIDI controllers, and it is eminently playable as well, although the vibrato response can be a little difficult to master.
Combined with the ability to layer sounds, you can make multi-part, multi-instrument projects and then export them as audio mixdowns, stems or MIDI files. EDIT: Oh yeah, I got my Raspberry Pi Zero W working with the board so even if they don’t release the fabled wireless adapter, you can still play over bluetooth.Available with the Pro option, the Joué Editor software allows you to edit each MIDI message sent by the Play Pads. Pressure-sensitive, MPE-capable, configurable multi-touch MIDI controllers seem to be like buses: you wait ages then two come along (almost) at once. However the orientation has to be set in the editor, and then loaded into the module: the Joué isn't capable of determining that by itself. The Pro option is a firmware upgrade that gives you full access to the Joué Editor, with MIDI mapping and MPE specification. While the patent and fcc documents note that the areas could be denoted within the memory, I think it’s hard coded in the firmware and the module is just storing parameters for the module type.
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