MPE Insight is a real-time performance environment built entirely around MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression).
Every gesture from your controller (pressure, pitch bend, timbre) becomes a live visual signal as you play. Not a visualizer. A performance space where sound and image share the same expressive data stream.
No MPE controller? The built-in DRIFT processor turns any ordinary MIDI keyboard into an expressive MPE instrument, and the whole app works from there.
KEY FEATURES
Full per-note expression tracking: each finger acts as its own control layer. Pressure, pitch bend (glide), timbre (CC74), velocity and release velocity, tracked per note and per channel
DRIFT processor: turns any ordinary MIDI keyboard into an expressive MPE controller. Randomized per-note pressure, pitch and timbre motion, plus octave layers, a chord machine with scale lock, note spread, bend quantize, humanize and a full arpeggiator that runs free or locks to incoming MIDI Clock. Every module, and every synth downstream, then reacts as if played on an expressive controller
21 real-time Aura visual engines: particles, tunnel, kaleidoscope, contour, DNA, orrery, silk flames, photo swarm, tonewheel and more, switchable instantly without breaking the performance
CASCADE note-rain: a piano-roll-style rain of notes above the keyboard, driven live by your MPE. Eight combinable render layers (Bars, Particles, Lightning, Code Rain, Plasma, Waveform, Vines, Stars), hand-split colouring, impact effects and bloom
CASCADE Score Source: turn a picture, a drawing or plain text into a falling score. Pixels and glyphs map to notes through a scale and root of your choice, play back on CASCADE's own transport, and export as a Standard MIDI File for your DAW. No keys needed
FORGE depth engine: turns any image, video or live webcam feed into a 3D scene you fly through. AI depth, parallax, camera flight, feedback trails, Living World scene styles and a full FX rack (glitch, mosaic, false color, depth of field, fog, infinity spiral, retro pixel VHS), all shaped live by your MPE gestures
FORGE module feed: route any other module into FORGE and fly through your own visuals in 3D. Aura, CASCADE, the live notation, the Expression Overview, the Keyboard, even several at once, blended
FORGE Conductor: a music-driven auto-director that moves the camera in sync with your playing. Play hard and it gets bold, play soft and it calms down, stop and the world keeps breathing on its own
Live Grand Staff notation with four ways to read the same playing: Now (only what you hold), Time (a scrolling timeline), Flow (every note a ribbon whose length is its duration and whose curve is the bend) and Weave (the staves give way to an interval field, where every major chord is the same triangle in every key)
Lead-sheet export: turn any recorded take into sheet music. A paginated grand staff with chord symbols, engraved straight from your performance and saved as a single PNG
9 modules running simultaneously and freely arrangeable: five analysis modules (an 88-key Keyboard with eight visual designs, PB/Mod expression graphs, Expression Overview with four view modes, MIDI Stream Log and the live Grand Staff notation), the three visual engines (Aura, CASCADE, FORGE) and the DRIFT processor
Built-in MIDI file player: load a .mid and every module plays it, with full transport for play, pause, seek, loop and speed. The file runs through exactly the same path as live input, DRIFT included
Full MPE recording with tempo-aware export to MIDI (Type 0 / Type 1) and CSV for DAW integration
Reads your instrument: MPE Insight picks up the real pitch-bend range your controller reports (RPN 0) and draws every bend at its true size, instead of assuming a standard
Modular, freely arrangeable workspace: resize and rearrange every module into your own layout, and open multiple instances of a module at once
91 built-in presets for instant results: 48 Aura looks across all 21 engines, 20 CASCADE scenes and 23 FORGE scenes. Load one, then tweak and save your own
Three-tier snapshot system: unlimited, reorderable Global Snapshot playlists (full app state, exportable and importable as one file), plus dedicated Aura and per-module snapshots
MIDI Learn: assign a Note, CC (pedal), or Program Change to flip through your Global Snapshots hands-free during a live set
Built-in Demo Mode with full MPE simulation: explore every module without a controller connected
Live MIDI output: play visuals directly via mouse/touch, or forward incoming MIDI through to another device
Fits your setup: switch the whole app between 88, 61 and 49 keys, and put any module, or all of them, on a transparent background for overlay use in your video mix
Per-channel filtering and MIDI Clock/BPM sync for tight integration with the rest of your setup
Multiple MIDI devices active at once, auto-detected on connect