This classy multi-touch controller helps you take full control of your instruments with polyphonic expression. Greg Scarth finds out more.
Originally launched via a successful crowdfunding campaign back in 2020, the Embodme Erae Touch is now in full production, the debut release from this small French company. In simple terms, it’s a multi-touch controller which responds to up to ten simultaneous gestures, but it’s also a pad controller which can be played with drumsticks, a sequencer, a polyphonic-aftertouch keyboard, an Ableton clip launcher, and much more. Designed primarily for use with MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) and the emerging MIDI 2.0 protocol, the Erae Touch can be used as a conventional MIDI controller too, and a lot of its features are just as effective over MIDI as they are over MPE.
Arriving packaged in a quality protective sleeve, the Erae Touch is a classy, very well built unit. The basic formula is quite easy to understand, although there are plenty of hidden details and more advanced features to explore. In essence, though, the Erae Touch is a fairly plain unit, just over 40 centimetres wide, 24 cm tall and 16.5 millimetres thick. It’s a fairly weighty unit at 2.5 kilograms, but that just adds to the sense of solidity and shouldn’t be an issue for most seeing as it’s not really pitched as a portable device.
In the box you’ll also find a power supply, USB cable and 3.5mm-to-5-pin-DIN MIDI adapter. Physical connections and dedicated buttons are kept to a minimum; there’s a power socket, USB-C and 3.5mm TRS MIDI connections on the back edge, while the left-hand side of the top panel features five buttons: a bass clef representing scales, plus and minus buttons, a home button and Alt button (for alternate/shift functions).
The control surface of the Erae itself is the single most important feature, and it’s a smooth, matte expanse of rubber with a fine grid of lines covering the whole thing. The surface is firm to the touch, but when you apply pressure it yields and generates a Z-pressure signal based on how hard you push (Z-pressure is generated as an assignable MIDI CC signal, which is available separately to the aftertouch signal in MPE mode). As such, the combination of X-Y position, Z pressure and release pressure allow you to control a range of layouts, not limited to keyboards, pads and an isomorphic ‘key grid’, but also including faders, X-Y pads, clip launchers, mixers and much more. The Erae has 16 layout slots (each with an alternate layout), and includes 30 layouts to get you started.
In terms of what the Erae Touch can do, the answer is extremely open-ended. It’s a controller, yes, but it’s clearly been designed with versatility and customisation in mind. The accompanying Erae Lab software allows you to create and edit layouts for the Touch, with various factory layouts included and available to download. The best starting point is probably to try the Erae with an MPE-compatible synth plugin like Xfer Serum or Arturia Pigments. Embodme offer 11 presets for Serum and a ‘Pigments Explorer’ layout to get you started with each. You’ll soon get a sense of the excellent feel and feedback of the silicone surface, as well as the way that it encourages you to perform and manipulate the sound itself as well as playing notes. Switch to alt view in the Pigments Explorer and you can sequence the software at the same time.
The option to sequence and perform at the same time is just one of many ways the Erae shows its versatility. In controller layouts, tapping an element and then holding down the Alt button allows you to access MIDI effects, labelled as HARD – harmoniser, arpeggiator, repeater and delay. These effects allow you to process your own performance in real time, adjusting settings for each one and toggling on and off any combination of the four simultaneously.
Visual feedback from the RGB LED panel works twofold; it’s there to show you what you’re controlling and indicate settings, of course, but you suspect Embodme have thought just as much about the performance element of the Erae Touch, creating something which looks cool while you play it. The Erae feels ideally suited to function as a centrepiece for a live show; point a camera at it and you’ve got visuals which seem much more impressive than most controllers. The Erae seems to have been designed with both studio use and live use in mind, more or less equally; it’s not just a composition tool or a synth programming but also a performance tool all at the same time.
At £730, the Erae Touch sits somewhere in the middle of the range of MPE controllers on the market. There are much cheaper options such as the Joue Play or Keith McMillen QuNexus, while Roger Linn’s excellent LinnStrument comes in at nearly twice the price. What’s notable about those four options is that they all go about approaching instrument control in completely different ways, with the Erae almost certainly being the most versatile of the lot. It’s exceptionally versatile, but more importantly it’s tactile and responsive in a way that makes you feel connected with synths and virtual instruments. Touch controllers aren’t necessarily for everyone – and if you prefer a good old-fashioned keyboard there’s nothing wrong with that – but as a taste of the next generation of synth control, the Erae Touch shows what can be done.
Greg Scarth
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