Expressive E - Osmose 49 CE + Soliste

The Expressive E Osmose 49 CE + Soliste bundle is designed around a simple idea: to recreate, within a digital environment, some of the nuances and interactions characteristic of playing an acoustic instrument. By combining the Osmose 49 CE keyboard with the Soliste suite, this bundle transforms the musician’s gestures into performance parameters that can be directly utilised by virtual instruments.

The Osmose provides a playing surface particularly well-suited to this approach. Each key features independent control of pressure and movement, allowing the player to modulate dynamics, vibrato, pitch and certain articulations without having to use multiple external MIDI commands. Techniques such as press, glide, vibrato, shake, strum or expressive note-off can thus become an integral part of the performance.

Soliste harnesses this richness through four solo string instruments based on physical modelling: violin, viola, cello and double bass. Rather than simply triggering samples, the suite reproduces various behaviours associated with instrumental playing and offers several performance modes, allowing the engine’s response to be adapted to the musician’s intentions. The available articulations – such as pizzicato, sul ponticello, Bartók, staccato and tremolo – can be incorporated into the performance and combined with the expressive variations produced by Osmose.

The suite is naturally suited to film scoring, contemporary orchestral music, sound design and performance. Independent per-note control makes it possible, in particular, to assign different movements to notes within the same chord or phrase, whereas a traditional MIDI keyboard generally imposes a much more global approach.

With the inclusion of Pressure Glide, transitions between notes also feel more natural. Musicians can thus work on phrases, attacks, vibratos and timbre changes directly from the keyboard, without having to interrupt their performance to adjust multiple parameters with the mouse.

Osmose also comes with the Ctrl-e ecosystem and over 900 expressive presets, whilst Soliste rounds off this environment with a comprehensive range of solo strings designed for detailed performances. The result is a suite particularly well-suited to composers who wish to move quickly from a musical idea to an expressive performance that can be utilised in their productions.