The internet has been buzzing with demos of the Osmose Expressive E since they started arriving to VIPs studios earlier this year. I have been fascinated by it since 3D renders of it showed up in November of 2019. Four years later, I finally have it and now that I’ve had a day or two to allow my brain to reassemble itself I’m ready to say something about it.

There are many directions that artists will steer this machine. One is by leveraging physical modeling to emulate acoustic instruments. Doing this requires developing the techniques and having the knowledge to work the Osmose into matching the range and textures of the target instrument. Secondly it requires expertly designed patches that can translate the subtleties of the player’s expression into the expected nuances. Benn Jordan has a great video here that goes into detail about how this can be done. I do not intend to address the debate regarding “should this be done?” in this article, other than to state that there is an ongoing debate (perhaps since music was electrically amplified) along with far reaching consequences to musicians and the music industry at large of which we all ought to be aware.

Instead I’d like to share how I intend to steer my use of the Osmose. In a nutshell this will be a similar approach to the way I use most of my synthesizers – by using it to discover new, unheard, distinct, weird, and wonderful textures. And perhaps even finding ways to use it not conceived by the designers. The beauty of doing this with the Osmose is that with MPE (MIDI polyphonic expression) and three axes per key, new depths of expression are possible than ever were before with conventional key beds. That in itself presents a bit of a paradox because I don’t think that most listeners will grasp that much of the music made with the Osmose is played on a keyboard. Even listening back to some of my own initial playing leads me to imagine exotic acoustic instruments versus a keyboard driven synthesizer. This creates a sort of “irrational juxtaposition” of timbre with technique, in parallel with what you might see in surrealism or AI art.

This leads us to the uncanny valley. I think the Osmose is inherently susceptible to an emotional response akin to our revulsion toward humanlike robots. I admit that this may seem a bit exaggerated, but I consider this evidence of a marked advancement in music technology; the Osmose gives keyboard players the ability to inject nearly as much expression into a synthesizer engine as musicians are able to express with tactile acoustic instruments.

So the question is how do we use all of this expression and nuance without evoking the uncanny valley? I can’t answer that yet and perhaps the we don’t need to avoid it at all. Perhaps evoking the uncanny valley will be the intent for some of us. It will take time for the world to get used to it, just like it had to get used to moving pictures, television, and the internet. Until then we can appreciate the alien newness or uncanny surrealism the instrument summons. What I’ve learned in the few hours I’ve had with the Osmose is that I need to develop new techniques, not only in my playing, but in my approach to sound design. I believe doing this and finding my own personal style of playing the Osmose will be a long, challenging road and I expect I’ll enjoy the ride.