Regardless, there several pre-MPE synths that support PolyAT in my studio, so it would be nice if the Hapax supported this natively.
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The original Hydrasynth was quite capable of sending MPE properly in the past, including turning its poly aftertouch keyboard into MPE channel pressure messages. I’ve used it that way in the past, as have plenty of other people. Either they broke it in later firmware (not hugely likely but not totally impossible I suppose) or you are doing something wrong. There would be no point in it having an MPE output capability at all if it couldnt do that, since it lacks the other MPE per-note expressive dimensions other than those it can harness via its poly aftertouch keybed. What the original is lacking compared to the later Hydrasynth models is other stuff like note release velocity, which strictly speaking doesnt require MPE anyway.
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So basically we cannot record Poly AT from the Hydrasynth to the Hapax, right? I’m going back to Ableton…
It is a feature I want dearly as well, but I am not “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” I think there are enough folks who care enough about this feature that it will come to fruition. The Hapax is a great sequencer even without PolyAT support, but I think the Squarp devs will need to address the fact that this was a supported feature in early firmwares and then was removed. I purchased my Hapax, knowing that it was supported, then it was removed… then promised that it would be fixed and reimplemented in a future firmware (as per earlier messages in this chain) and now there is a real lack of clarity about this. It would be best if someone on the team just clearly stated “we will not be moving forward with supporting PolyAT” or “be patient, we will get to it.” Either way, it helps those who are building studios workflows plan accordingly.
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It remains my opinion that using MPE mode should work as a workaround. If it doesnt work right now then there is a bug on either the Hapax or Hydrasynth side of things to do with some MPE detail.
I tried the Hapax side of MPE again the other day using a Push 3 and it all worked as expected. I cannot repeat this test with the original Hydrasynth keyboard because I sold mine. I do intend to try with the desktop version of the Hydrasynth when I get some spare time.
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No it doesn’t dude… it forces us to sacrifice all channels of a physical midi output for it and that is just not an option for everyone. I am one of the people that bought the Hapax because it advertised to be a poly AT capable sequencer and the lack of communication about this subject from the developer is quite annoying at this point. The post from @Thibault_Squarp in this topic mentions Q1 2023, Im sorry but it is 2024 now and its silence on their part. I don’t expect them to respond to every post on the forum but this forum is a dead community because of the lack of involvement from this developer. And that’s how feel about it.
I agree that MPE is not replacement for PolyAT. Specifically, those who want to use PolyAT from our controller with other non MPE modules that support PolyAT. As I mentioned in my post, the Squarp team has been busy with 2.0 and delivered beyond most expectations of functionality. For a small team, it can be difficult juggling development, support, sales, and support. Hapax is not the only product they have. Yes, we are frustrated with the lack of support with PolyAT, but I am going give @Thibault_Squarp and the team the benefit of doubt that they will respond. Time will tell…
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Hey everyone,
To clarify, we are planning on tackling this. So far we’ve had other things to prioritize over this, but I’m confident I can allocate time for this in the coming months.
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Thank you for this response @Thibault_Squarp I for one want the best for this device and I am passionate about its potential! And I do wish the best for this company so no hard feelings! 
I only called it a workaround, I didnt say it had no downsides, or was perfectly suitable for everyone. For some scenarios its certainly better than no solution at all, its something some people can use while waiting for PolyAT support. I didnt tell anyone to stop moaning about lack of poly aftertouch as a result. And I’ve only been making repeated posts about this because there are a couple of people who dont seem to be able to get the MPE workaround working at all with their Hydrasynths, and I dont want to make assumptions about why, or let people conclude that MPE is broken when I doubvt thats the right conclusion, I’d like to get to the bottom of whatever is causing their problem.
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It does seem like MPE on the Hapax is misbehaving, based on a quick test.
I’ve set up an MPE track, open midi monitor, and incoming MPE messages are as-expected (each note with a channel allocated) but all outgoing note messages are assigned to channel 1. The track input and output settings show MPE 1…16 which seems correct.
Possible this a misconfiguration, but I don’t see any settings that would make me think this behavior is configurable.
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Same here! I have submitted a bug report - please can you do the same
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