Embodme, the company behind the original Erae Touch, has followed up with Erae 2, a redesigned MPE touch controller aimed at modular synth users and live performers who need something more rugged and flexible than a standard keybed. First shown at NAMM 2024 and refined through 2025, the production version has now reached reviewers, with hands-on coverage from Engadget and FutureMusic confirming it's now shipping.
A surface built for more than fingers
Where many MPE controllers are essentially reshaped piano keybeds, the Erae 2 is a flat, pressure-sensitive touch surface that can be freely mapped into whatever zones, scales, or control regions a performer wants. The redesign focuses on making that surface more versatile in practice: it now ships with swappable skins, including a thin four-millimeter fabric skin suited to fingertip playing and a thicker silicone option built to survive stick and percussion work. That alone widens the instrument's use case from finger-drummers to mallet and stick players who previously had to look at dedicated pad controllers instead.
Embodme has also expanded the unit's analog I/O, making it a more natural hub for modular synth rigs — CV and gate signals can be sent directly from the touch surface without an intermediary MIDI-to-CV converter. An onboard integrated looper and a more tactile control interface round out the hardware changes, letting performers build layered, expressive loops without tethering the unit to a laptop.
Why the surface redesign matters for MPE
A recurring complaint with touch-surface controllers has been surface grip and pressure sensitivity — sliding a finger to bend pitch or add vibrato needs the right amount of friction, and errors compound quickly during a live set. According to Synth Anatomy's coverage, the Erae 2's new surface material is both grippier and more sensitive than its predecessor, which should translate into more reliable per-note pitch, pressure, and slide gestures — the three pillars of any MPE performance.
Because the surface is fully mappable rather than fixed to piano-key positions, it's particularly well suited to microtonal scales, isomorphic layouts, or entirely custom zone configurations, something keybed-based MPE controllers like the Roli Seaboard or Expressive E Osmose can't offer in the same way.
Pricing and availability
Coverage from Equipboard puts current pricing starting around $859, with the standard retail price cited closer to $1,000 depending on configuration. That places the Erae 2 in the same general price bracket as other high-end MPE hardware, though it's aimed at a different playing style than keybed controllers in that range.
Where it fits in an MPE setup
For modular performers, the Erae 2's expanded CV/gate I/O is arguably the headline feature — it turns the touch surface into a direct expressive controller for a Eurorack rig without needing a separate MIDI-to-CV module in the signal chain. For live electronic performers more broadly, the onboard looper means expressive phrases can be captured and layered on stage, independent of a DAW.
Musicians considering the Erae 2 alongside plugin-based MPE instruments should check compatibility with their existing MPE software chain — Embodme's own Erae Sound synthesizer plugin was designed specifically around the original Erae Touch's expressive data, and the company has indicated similar tight integration with Erae 2. Full specs and ordering information are available on Embodme's product page.
A growing category
The Erae 2 arrives at a moment when free-form touch surfaces are becoming a distinct sub-category within MPE hardware, separate from keybed controllers and grid instruments. That gives performers more genuine choice in how they want to physically interact with expressive parameters — whether that's the discrete key feel of an Osmose, the isomorphic grid of a LinnStrument, or the continuous, freely mappable surface of an Erae. For anyone building a hybrid modular-and-software rig, that flexibility is increasingly the deciding factor over raw spec sheets.