Nektar T4/T6 Aftertouch question

I am considering the T6 but I am curious if anyone uses one of these? I have the LX61+ and LX88+, and I am a fan, but I would like to get a controller with Aftertouch. I am not familiar with how Aftertouch is sent. Is it independently controlled for each key? Meaning if I am pressing 3 keys, could I send Aftertouch for only 1 of those keys?

https://nektartech.com/panorama-t4-t6-controller/

Hi Andy
there are two types of aftertouch:

  • channel aftertouch (pressing one key affects the whole midi channel)
  • polyphonic aftertouch (each key sends its very own aftertouch value)

There are actually very few controllers which support polyphonic aftertouch, i suppose it is mainly because those kind of sensors make a keyboard quite expensive. Besides that, it seems to be not so easy to play such a controller really properly, and last, there may be not so many musicians asking for that feature.

So i think the Nektar keyboards will only suport channel aftertouch (this is what most of the actual keyboards with aftertouch have, except from such exotic controllers like the Roli Seaboard).

But there is also the VST-side that has to support a polyphonic aftertouch - not all of the VSTs do!
EDIT: I just saw the infos on the Nektar site and they say it has an “Aftertouch strip”, so this means it only has channel aftertouch - there is one pressure sensitive strip under the keys which gives one single signal, no matter which, or how many keys are pressed.

I found two threads (which are not too old) in other forums that may be informative for your needs:


and
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=204531

I really do like having aftertouch on my keyboards (actually it’s a MUST for me), but i too think that polyphonic aftertouch would be some kind of overkill - at least for my playing skills. :innocent::face_with_hand_over_mouth:

Thank you for the information. I think I will get a T6.

I got the T6, and I am enjoying aftertouch. BTW, the T6 does have note aftertouch via the pads.

Polyphonic aftertouch can be used to great effect with practice. My Ensoniq EPS-16+ and ASR-10 both have polyphonic aftertouch and from a live performance perspective, I could use it to modulate an individual note among many to emphasize, de-emphasize in relation to it’s struck peers on a given patch. This did take some practice, but was very cool.

I no longer use these particular instruments live due to their age, but I can’t bring myself to sell them either. In fact, those keyboards have a significant amount of performance features I still somewhat miss in more modern keyboards… plus the sequencer workflow was simply outstanding.

X