Expressive E Touche SE

Want to talk about music hardware or software that doesn't include Reason?
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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

05 Mar 2019

Hi,

I'm thinking about purchasing the expression "pedal" Touché SE from Expressive E, but I wanted to ask if someone here already has tested it with Reason and if there are any incompatibilities with this piece of gear, as I recently purchased a ROLI Seaboard 49 and had to give up on using its MPE features as Reason still don't support this. Does somebody have some experience with the Touche SE and Reason already?

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Crumbfort
Posts: 185
Joined: 20 May 2018

05 Mar 2019

I've got the Touche (with CV) and it works just fine with Reason/Logic/Reaper. You shouldn't run into any of the MPE wonkiness as the Touche just sends out 4 midi CCs for up/down/left/right pressure (or pitch bend if you configure it that way). I've found Reason to be particularly good for this as you can easily slew/manipulate the incoming CC data for longer evolving modulations. Very fun controller.
Descent: Legends of the Dark // Darkeport Productions // The LotR: ACG // Blue Zones (Netflix) // Chef's Table (Netflix)

(Composer for visual media / Adeptus Mechanicus Synthseer)

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

07 Mar 2019

Thanks for the answer, nice to hear that, I just sold my bass yesterday and going to get Touche SE this weekend. I really like the idea behind it and want to test it with some different setups and CVs customization in Reason, I never felt comfortable with the classic mod wheels on regular keyboards because of their size, think Touche can do the trick and a lot more for me :)

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

18 Mar 2019

I got my Touche SE today and am having problems to get it working in Reason. The device works fine in standalone mode and the VSTs were correctly scanned, even under preferences in Reason the Touche apperas as activated, but when I load any instrument or VST with Lie inside Reason and try to use the hardware it doesn't register any incoming midi signal, am I missing something here?

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

18 Mar 2019

I have just read this on the Expressive E website:

"Please also note that Lié is unfortunately not compatible with the DAW Reason. Reason uses a special way to communicate with external MIDI devices that renders it unusable with our companion app Lié."

@Crumbfort: How are you using your Touche if it's supposed to not be compatible with Reason? Is there a different approach to get this device working on Reason?

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Crumbfort
Posts: 185
Joined: 20 May 2018

18 Mar 2019

Hey reddust, I genuinely hope I have not led you astray on this. How I use the Touche (with Reason/Reaper/Logic) is like this:

-Open Lie app in standalone mode.
-Switch to "hardware" presets
-Make multiple user presets for sending various CC configurations, for example: up = cc01 / down = cc11 / left = cc19 / right = cc20. Make some variations on this, add some pitch bend to a few, etc...
-Go to memory view and select where I want these user presets to go on the hardware.
-Sync with Touche
-Close Lie app

Then the Touche functions like any MIDI CC sending controller with each DAW. I don't use the Lie plugin at any point inside any DAW, only the standalone app. Once I've got my user presets built I can just switch between them using the buttons on the Touche.

I hope that helps. Definitely let me know if you have any other questions.
Descent: Legends of the Dark // Darkeport Productions // The LotR: ACG // Blue Zones (Netflix) // Chef's Table (Netflix)

(Composer for visual media / Adeptus Mechanicus Synthseer)

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Crumbfort
Posts: 185
Joined: 20 May 2018

18 Mar 2019

To expand on that, my favorite way to use the Touche with Reason looks like this:

Screen Shot 2019-03-18 at 4.54.21 PM.png
Screen Shot 2019-03-18 at 4.54.21 PM.png (368.12 KiB) Viewed 2847 times
Using the free and awesome CV8X4 CV Generator RE from Aftermath Audio (https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... generator/)

This way you can easily send out controller data to multiple locations and modify each as you will.
Descent: Legends of the Dark // Darkeport Productions // The LotR: ACG // Blue Zones (Netflix) // Chef's Table (Netflix)

(Composer for visual media / Adeptus Mechanicus Synthseer)

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

18 Mar 2019

Hey Crumbfort thanks a lot for these recommendations, I'm going to try them later, I just managed to get the Touche working just as a controller without keyboard assigning sends to CC values and only that was already great to feel the potential this device has for working with Reason.

I just felt like it was a pity not being able to use Lie in Reason as it has the control tweaking for the Touche CC sends, but seems like your solution is going to help me a lot, or at least I hope so :)

Thanks a lot for your help

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Crumbfort
Posts: 185
Joined: 20 May 2018

18 Mar 2019

No problem! Let me know how it goes or if you have any questions.
Descent: Legends of the Dark // Darkeport Productions // The LotR: ACG // Blue Zones (Netflix) // Chef's Table (Netflix)

(Composer for visual media / Adeptus Mechanicus Synthseer)

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

19 Mar 2019

Yeah, using the combinator worked like a charm. I don't know why but the hardware presets link was greyed out on my Lie copy, so I couldn't prepare some different presets but I'll check that later today, maybe I was looking on the wrong place or had to change some settings. I'll try that CV8X4 CV Generator RE too, looks great :)

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BananaSkins
Posts: 474
Joined: 29 Sep 2017

12 Apr 2019

reddust wrote:
19 Mar 2019
Yeah, using the combinator worked like a charm. I don't know why but the hardware presets link was greyed out on my Lie copy, so I couldn't prepare some different presets but I'll check that later today, maybe I was looking on the wrong place or had to change some settings. I'll try that CV8X4 CV Generator RE too, looks great :)
Just wondering have you found the 'Expressive E' usable in Reason 10?

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

12 Apr 2019

BananaSkins wrote:
12 Apr 2019
Just wondering have you found the 'Expressive E' usable in Reason 10?
Yes, it seems to be useful under some conditions. I've only tested it a little bit because I'm pretty much at the beginning of learning Reason and also the combinator. But so far I'd say the Touche SE is like having a four axis mod wheel with a pretty nice grip and feel, so depending on how much you use that kind of modulation it can be useful.

I also own a ROLI Seaboard and I think Reason doesn't support its features completely, I think the main issue is something with MIDI multichannel sends or similar, and I can't get the Seaboards full potential working with Reason, otherwise I'd say the Touche would be for me an unnecessary tool, but as far as I can't use the Seaboard I'm using it most of the time.

Bad thing is that you can't use Touche's included Software to assign CC Values, which would make things much more easier, that's why I need to make use of the combinator

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BananaSkins
Posts: 474
Joined: 29 Sep 2017

12 Apr 2019

reddust wrote:
12 Apr 2019
BananaSkins wrote:
12 Apr 2019
Just wondering have you found the 'Expressive E' usable in Reason 10?
Yes, it seems to be useful under some conditions. I've only tested it a little bit because I'm pretty much at the beginning of learning Reason and also the combinator. But so far I'd say the Touche SE is like having a four axis mod wheel with a pretty nice grip and feel, so depending on how much you use that kind of modulation it can be useful.

I also own a ROLI Seaboard and I think Reason doesn't support its features completely, I think the main issue is something with MIDI multichannel sends or similar, and I can't get the Seaboards full potential working with Reason, otherwise I'd say the Touche would be for me an unnecessary tool, but as far as I can't use the Seaboard I'm using it most of the time.

Bad thing is that you can't use Touche's included Software to assign CC Values, which would make things much more easier, that's why I need to make use of the combinator
Thanks for your reply... :thumbs_up:

Frankdw
Posts: 31
Joined: 13 Feb 2016

22 Sep 2019

Although I love reason an I think it is greatly misknown for it being a TOP DAW, it does lack support for some really good controllers: I also bought the ROli, only founding out it ins't supported by reason. Bought the Keylab MK2, same issue... now I wanted to check out the awesome Touche, but wanted to check first and yes again, no 'real' support. It really is a shame and I do hope that besides all the cool features, they adress this 'shortcoming' in supporting these hardware controllers...(V11.1?) because as they state; reason is all about making music instead of being busy programming etc. these controllers do just that, they bring a whole level of easyness and creativity to music... Hope someone at the Reason studios heads this or at least is on the same page, working on some solutions.
Cheers
Frank

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reddust
Posts: 677
Joined: 07 May 2018

23 Sep 2019

Frankdw wrote:
22 Sep 2019
Although I love reason an I think it is greatly misknown for it being a TOP DAW, it does lack support for some really good controllers: I also bought the ROli, only founding out it ins't supported by reason. Bought the Keylab MK2, same issue... now I wanted to check out the awesome Touche, but wanted to check first and yes again, no 'real' support. It really is a shame and I do hope that besides all the cool features, they adress this 'shortcoming' in supporting these hardware controllers...(V11.1?) because as they state; reason is all about making music instead of being busy programming etc. these controllers do just that, they bring a whole level of easyness and creativity to music... Hope someone at the Reason studios heads this or at least is on the same page, working on some solutions.
Cheers
Frank
Totally agree, I ended up selling my Touche because what was supposed to be a help when creating songs turned out being a time loss on configurations. The Touche SE comes with a software that allows you to just drag and drop controls to devices to set it up really quick, so you can tell him what axis controls which selected parameter of your VST plugin, but this doesn't work in Reason, so you need to be putting combinators, assign the axis to the combinator buttons, assigning the combinator buttons to the parameters you want to control with the Touche, assign values, wish that what you want to control doesn't present any issues... at the end it was not really helping to the process of making music so I sold it.

I also have a ROLI Seaboard and I find quite terrible that I can't use its most powerful features inside Reason because Reason lacks MPE support. I hope Reason devs also are aware that these kind of instruments are also part of the future of making music and make a step in this direction soon. For me personally much more interesting than creating iOS versions of the Reason devices.

michaueczekowsky
Posts: 1
Joined: 18 Jan 2024

18 Jan 2024

Crumbfort wrote:
18 Mar 2019
To expand on that, my favorite way to use the Touche with Reason looks like this:


Screen Shot 2019-03-18 at 4.54.21 PM.png

Using the free and awesome CV8X4 CV Generator RE from Aftermath Audio (https://www.propellerheads.com/shop/rac ... generator/)

This way you can easily send out controller data to multiple locations and modify each as you will.

Hi!

Are You able to upload screenshots how it supposed to look on combinator in reason 12 with screenshot with back rack , how to connect cables to see how does it look like?

Cheers

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