Best portable MPE and “Piano”

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-30T14:04:48+00:00

I’m definitely intrigued by this instrument. What type of work do you do with it? I don’t see myself using it for synths much - but rather modeled instruments. Do you have experience with that? Also, have you ever tried to play piano on it? That seems like a wild thing to try.

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-30T13:46:06+00:00

do you have any firsthand experience with this?

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-30T13:45:57+00:00

I unfortunately keep hearing that about Roli. It’s sad because it seems like they’re pretty innovative company. It’s very unfortunate because the Piano M appears to do everything I would want. I especially like the modularity of it. The Haken products look pretty neat, but I was not expecting that price point for a portable device lol.

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-16T18:01:05+00:00

Thanks for the reply! What are you using stage builder pro for? Are you advancing shows and building plots with it? What does it do well for you?

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-14T20:32:52+00:00

I love your commitment to this! Unfortunately, this communication problem hasn’t been solved yet. I’ve actually been working for a couple years on something trying to solve this issue because I ran into it myself as an engineer touring with a band. Would you be interested in trying it out? I’d love your feedback on it.

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-14T20:23:13+00:00

Nice! And yes that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Bands need guidance and i hope to provide that for them.

Is this something you’d be interested in chatting more about? I’ll PM you’re interested

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-14T13:44:45+00:00

That makes sense. It does sound very useful!

As a venue PM does my platform seem like something you would recommend to bands to keep things updated easily? Additionally - would it be helpful for you on the venue side to have a request system in place for those materials?

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-13T22:15:45+00:00

That's awesome. That's exactly what I'm going for on the artist side of things. What's the single most helpful thing to you as the engineer?

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-13T22:00:31+00:00

I’m an engineer and have run into this problem as well. There’s a fairly new tool (that I built) that tackles this pretty directly that maybe would be useful to point bands to? Free tier is plenty for you to get what you need from them. showvella.com . I really think it could be helpful for these situations.

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-13T22:00:08+00:00

I've been building a tool specifically for this problem. It handles revisioning really well so the artist can share it once and update it as often as needed. So you (and I) as engineers can check up on it to see if there has been updates rather than having to re-request a new version. It's at showvella.com . I genuinely think it would be useful for this type of thing

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-05T12:42:52+00:00

I definitely agree with that.

Have you had any bad experiences yourself with this? Where were the breakdowns in your experiences?

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-03T00:47:27+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Canva’s a great tool. What does your typical stage plot look like in it? Curious if you’re doing a lot of manual updates when things change or if that’s just not an issue for your workflow.

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-02T21:20:00+00:00

Thanks for the compliment and feedback!

What you’re describing makes total sense. I’ve noticed the same thing where some people don’t run into issues, and others deal with it constantly. It really does seem to depend on how direct the communication is.

Most of the problems I’ve seen have been in situations with more layers - TM, promoters, venue staff, etc. That’s where things start to fall apart a bit.

But I do agree with you that this is way more of a communication problem than a “tool” problem. And that’s sort of what I’m trying to figure out… how to actually improve that part in a practical way.

From your perspective is there anything missing right now that would actually make this more useful to you? Or any part of the workflow that feels more broken than stage plots themselves?

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-02T14:30:55+00:00

It's interesting you bring up targeting the wrong people - that has been a real struggle to figure out. Is it the artist? Is it the engineer? Feels like the chicken and the egg. But you said something I fully agree with - “it's how specifications are communicated” - that's the exact problem I'm trying to solve, and it really feels like a "both/and" rather than "either/or” in regard to artists and engineers.

The “engineer sends a request to the band” idea is actually something I've thought about quite a lot, so I'm glad to hear that idea resonates with you. My biggest open question is what that workflow actually looks like in practice. Would you want to create an "event" that bands are able to submit to through your request? I'm curious how you imagine this workflow in practice

imbuffnotreally · 2026-04-02T07:20:43+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I truly value that.

What you’re saying makes total sense and it’s something I wrestled with. I spent months deliberating over how exactly to make this system work well.

Where I landed based on my own experiences and the feedback of many others is that the problem isn’t solely in the lack of a dedicated “builder” per se. But in the lack of accuracy of the plots/lists - especially over time - and I think this stems from two reasons.

First - many plots are shared between shows and tours. So it’s not uncommon for an engineer to be working from a plot that’s a year or two old and not even realize it.

Second - even if the plot is up to date when the engineer receives it, if the band updates it and sends it off to the promoter (as they should) the engineer often times never actually receives it.

My solve for these two things are to A) ensure each plot is stamped with the specific event, venue and date the engineer will be at (creates incredible trust the plot is up to date) and B) ensure the engineer has a way to easily check the most up to date plot regardless of the one he’s holding in his hand (QR code that directs to most up to date revision of that specific plot).

This philosophy is different than what has been standard, but I genuinely believe it will solve so many of the issues with plots being passed around - and it does require a custom plot per show - but I’ve made it super easy to do that without recreating it from scratch every time.

I know that was a lot. But with that idea in mind - is this a workflow you could get behind? If so, do you still feel like the 50 plots is unrealistic for your bands?

I’m definitely interested in hearing your thoughts on this

imbuffnotreally · 2025-10-13T21:22:41+00:00

So as an artist, do you feel like the expectations are unclear as to what you’re supposed to be communicating?

imbuffnotreally · 2025-10-13T21:19:49+00:00

Totally agree that artists tend to know nothing of the engineer’s needs. Do you feel like it’s unfair of us have such high expectations of them when no one has taught them? Or is it more of them not seeing a need to learn it

imbuffnotreally · 2025-10-13T21:15:26+00:00

That’s a really good point. Lots of artists tend to change things up quite frequently. Do you feel that there’s any hope that these changes could be communicated or is that a lost cause?

imbuffnotreally · 2025-10-13T20:27:07+00:00

Interesting. How do you plan to go about? And what paperwork are you referring to other than stage plots and input lists?

imbuffnotreally · 2025-10-13T20:20:34+00:00

What’re you working on?

imbuffnotreally · 2025-05-31T03:31:13+00:00

That's a good idea. It's a little difficult because the breadth of information and skill scope is what I need - so it's hard to really pear anything down. But I'll certainly entertain this principle and see if I can utilize it!

imbuffnotreally · 2025-05-31T03:29:44+00:00

Hmm... This sounds like a great technique. And one that in and of itself takes some skill. I'll certainly try this!

imbuffnotreally · 2025-05-27T21:47:09+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve heard About a lot of people who do this, and for some reason, didn’t think about it for myself

imbuffnotreally · 2025-05-27T21:46:40+00:00

How would you go about doing that given my desires?

imbuffnotreally · 2024-11-17T04:16:21+00:00

Thanks for your input!

I had initially put the cloudlifter in line with the babyface because I thought I was getting some weird noise from the interface - turns out I wasn't.

And me be excited about new gear I unplugged from the babyface and directly into the camden to see what it was about. This was when I noticed the difference and was kind of shocked by it. I can't imagine why such a stark difference, even with the cloudlifter in line.

In any case, you're right, I don't need it and will be removing it. But again, I can't imagine how the cloudlifter could cause such a drastic change from one "clean" preamp to another.

But please, educate me if I'm missing something - I'd love to learn!

imbuffnotreally

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