Doepfer A-198 (Module + Manual)

I use the ribbon and A 198 module in compliment with an expressive E Touché to replicate the control of the Ondes Martenot.

The controller is very responsive and the tuning ability of the module allow quickly to make it your own, switching between a 3, 4, or 5 octave range.

I hesitated for a long time with an Eowave ribbon but I've chosen this one for the analog only path and the responsiveness of the touch.
As I wanted to play mainly tonal music with it, I was at the beginning a bit scared that there was no markers, but a bit of time spent tuning it with my oscillators and a few stickers ended up actually better. I could make it more precise and completely in tune with my specific case and oscillators. I don't use the pressure aspect of it much as I found it to be too unprecise for my liking. When I do it's for very subtle effect and range rather than a deep progressive one, which I'd leave to a modwheel or to the Touché, but for pitch or whatever you want to do with the left right control it's perfect.

In 5 months I have no complaint with the build quality so far.

I've been trying out various ribbon controllers from other brands, but this Doepfer nails it. With the Treshold at minimum it performs best and does not skip positions. Usually I keep the Scale in the middle for normal tonal range, but it can go as low or high as beyond hearing, which is quite a potential. I use this ribbon for droning, for transposing anaog sequencers, and for microtonal theremin improvisations. It's like playing cello from planet Vulcan in the 31st century ;-)

The manual is hefty and feels very solid, and is connected to the module with a non-standard USB A to USB A cable (and is not USB at all - it just uses the connectors, so you can use a standard USB extension cable to get a longer cable.

It feels very responsive and expressive to play and is quite a special experience, but will definitely take some practice to not sound out of tune all the time. The plastic surface is smooth but sometimes grips my finger too much if my skin is a bit dry - I'm considering keeping moisturiser close by to help. The position sensor is very sensitive to the lightest touch. The pressure sensor is a bit less sensitive and very playable. You don't need to press hard at all.

The sensor itself is labelled looks like it's made with conductors attached to plastic film, similar to the contacts in a membrane keyboard. Time will tell how long this will last. Long, I hope, since it's a lot of fun to play.

When touching with two fingers, the note played (or rather the position CV out) is not the position of the highest finger but is somewhere between the two (and not at all half way, either), so you can't trill naturally like you can on a monosynth keyboard. This is surely something common to all analogue ribbon controllers of this nature.

The system has two separate sensor sections: one for position, and one for pressure. Both these sections have a CV out with a scale knob, and a gate out with a threshold knob. Additionally, the position section has a hold on/off switch. With the hold switch off, the gate output switches on with even the slightest touch of the sensor, even before the pressure sensor registers. But then, the position CV out drops back to 0V (I think it's 0, but I didn't measure) as soon as you let go. This is fine if you don't use any release on the amp envelope, but if you do, you can hear the pitch suddenly drop when you let go. Switching the hold switch to on solves this by holding the pitch when you let go, but here's what's annoying: with this mode, the position gate out is always on, which makes it useless (well it's a useful voltage source I guess). This is working as documented on Doepfer's website. You can instead use the pressure gate, but that means you have to press slightly harder to trigger notes. It would be nice if the position gate out would still function when hold is on. Of course you could keep hold mode off and use your own S&H module to hold the pitch instead.

Another nice to have feature would be the ability to connect the manual at the rear of the module instead of the front, but it's no big deal.