Ranting about Xhip and MPE:

From what I've learned about their specification, it isn't practical or desirable for me to implement it. So ultimately while it may require only "minimal" effort (speculating, which is honestly not true) it simply isn't worthwhile for me. I've always been able to make it respond in a "MIDI channel mode" which could be selected from the polyphony parameter for example. I've never bothered because there is no reason at all to actually do so. No advantage whatsoever without a full per-channel re-implementation of everything which is incredibly complex. For example the current "route" page although it allows you to deal with MIDI CC to parameter mapping, it does not respect channel, does not handle RPN or NRPN parameters, does not support MSB/LSB 14-bit parameters and numerous other things.

Why? The reason is you can simply use multiple instances to get far better and more flexible support and control. MPE makes sense for a hardware synthesizer but it does not make sense for software which can be loaded with any number of instances essentially for free. The [b]only[/b] advantage would be allowing more than one parameter to be modulated per-voice (limited to 16 voices, but not limited to the polyphonic pressure controller which is already supported.) The list of disadvantages is much larger.

The internal sequencer is a different beast. For example you can hear the c64-style drum sounds made by playing sequences of very fast parameter changes (waveform, pulsewidth, etc.) While that would be possible with MPE it just wouldn't be efficient. So in order to accomplish such types of sounds it would make more sense (if desired, which isn't the case for me) to add a "parameter sequence" thing to the GUI as part of the presets. The implementation is 100% there already so that would be almost entirely GUI work... if I wanted to actually do that. The existing implementation was written mostly way back in 1998, so it wasn't like I had to invest much extra effort to put it in the plug-in. Honestly speaking I've thought about creating a "tracker version" of the Xhip plug-in which would have such features. That would be a completely different thing though "Xhip Tracker" rather than a polyphonic/monophonic synthesizer.

When I wrote Xhip I wanted a basic subtractive poly/mono synthesizer that worked "correctly". I've achieved that long ago - within practical limits of course based upon how much effort I'm actually willing to invest to perfect various aspects of it. As far as things like MPE there is no way I would be motivated to do all that work to satisfy my own needs: which honestly in their state today would mean I'd have never even started to create something like Xhip at all.