Question about After Touch

[Huertaaj]

Hi all: I don't have a keyboard that has After Touch. As I do some tests on a recent guitar VST purchase I see that some of the demo files include "After Touch" information in one of the Automation lanes. Is this After Touch information in the file useful ONLY if I output the MIDI to a keyboard that has built-in After Touch? Does the presence of the After Touch info in any way affect how the MIDI file sounds if played straight out of the DAW to my speakers? I have compared the sound coming out of Studio One directly to my speakers before and after deleting the After Touch data and can hear no difference. Is there something more to this that I should know? That leads to the question of...Why would a MIDI guitar demo file include After Touch information in the first place? I believe that it was originally recorded using a keyboard, but what would After Touch do to the sound of a guitar plugin?

 

[Lukas]

This depends entirely on the VSTi (or hardware instrument) that's playing the MIDI data. Since you didn't mention which instrument it is, I can't give a definitive answer. It's possible that the guitar library or plug-in interprets Aftertouch data and uses it for vibrato or some other expression parameter. But it's also possible that the demo composer wasn't aware that Aftertouch data was being recorded and that it doesn't actually serve any purpose in this demo song.

So you'll need to check the plug-in to find out.

 

[Huertaaj]

Thanks Lukas. The plugin is from Pettinhouse (ClassicGuitar 2.0). The plugin is rather old and it comes with no user manual and only a few demo MIDI files. I really liked the sound of the demo video that features this guitar playing bossa nova

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. I'm a sucker for buying guitar plugins that sound good, especially with bossa nova. So, I'll keep experimenting to see what sounds I can come up with.

 

[OutrageProductions]

I would highly suggest that you fire off an email directly to Andrea at Pettinhouse(dot)com.
I've found him to be very easy to engage with and he will answer your questions.
Personally, I doubt that he has incorporated AT into his products, but I have not updated any of his VSTi's in several years, so can't be definitive.

 

[lokeyfly]

So your VSTi instrument in this case likely incorporates AT. The next possibility is to see if your keyboard has it. That would enable real time AT. If you look at the video, my guess is he has a Fatar keybed and it does have aftertouch. Notice how all of the keys move slightly down when he presses on even other keys. So that's either a very cheap keyboard, or he has aftertouch. The latter looks to be the case. They're typically though very subtly, springy.

If your keyboard doesn't have AT or Polyphonic AT (individual polyphonic key detection of aftertouch), then the VSTI still could potentially have AT that you can control by some other means, such as an encoder knob. Like Lukas mentioned, either vibrato or some form of expression parameter.

Nice video and I'm also big on various Latin percussion.