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Aftertouch
Aftertouch information
Aftertouch, MIDI parameter or Keyboard function.



More information on Aftertouch
Most professional and more and more simple keyboards come with aftertouch these days. Aftertouch can be used in different ways. The most basic and standard use for it is to change the volume of a sound when you are already playing it. Lets asume you are playing a note on your keyboard. To simulate a real piano the note doesn't have to get louder. You would hit the note of chord and it would play and slowly fade away to silence. But what if you would want to play a saxophone or a string on your keyboard or synthesizer? These instruments have the ability to start a note and get louder after that.
To simulate this aftertouch was invented. When you play the note on the keyboard the sound starts. The keyboard or synthesizer has a built in system under each key which measures the pressure. So when you have played the note you can make the sound louder by pressing harder, hence the name aftertouch. So this gives you the possiblity as a keyboard player to simulate strings, woodwinds and brass instruments and sustain guitar notes longer.

Since the introduction of synthesizers aftertouch is used for many other things too. For instance it can be used to control the modulation of a note instead of using the modulation wheel, or for controlling the tremolo, or changing a note into a different sound.



More info Aftertouch
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Music Encyclopedia: Aftertouch