It’s not unusual for soft synths to be furnished with new preset packs - everyone loves new sounds, after all - but Expressive E’s new Phase Plant Expressive Suite is rather more than that. Yes, it contains presets - some 400 of them, in fact - but these are MPE patches that, with the right controller, can give Kilohearts’ Phase Plant plugin whole new levels of expression and nuance.
As you may be aware, MPE (or MIDI Polyphonic Expression, to use its full title) is a cutting-edge technology that enables you to go beyond simple velocity- and aftertouch-sensitivity and add real time control in multiple dimensions. By moving your fingers, you can adjust not only volume, but also pitch and other parameters on a per-note basis. You can even use MPE’s capabilities to trigger and modulate the likes of LFOs, filters and effects - the creative possibilities are pretty much limitless.
