polyphonic aftertouch from external controller

Hi - I'm considering buying a keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch. Will the force be able to receive the **poly** aftertouch messages and use them in synths/keygroups?

Yup, should work fine. It's standard MIDI, and the Force respects it.

Not sure how usable it is. Prepare for disappointment. If you're triggering external MIDI instruments, it'll be as fine as your external instruments make it. If you want internal instruments to react to poly aftertouch, your mileage may vary. I tested the various internal sound-generating facilities by creating a MIDI clip with two notes, each with its own per-note polyphonic aftertouch curve.

• Keygroups seem to react to polyphonic aftertouch, but not properly. I made a test keygroup instrument with two non-overlapping keygroup note ranges, and they both react to all aftertouch events, even to those which are outside the keygroup's range. I had the AFT>FLT modulation control set to 100 on both keygroups. Keygroups do not seem to react to channel pressure (mono aftertouch) at all. Sending poly aftertouch on multiple notes simultaneously creates a gurgling sound, because conflicting data from separate notes gets interleaved. Maybe I did something wrong.
  
• TubeSynth, Hype, Solina and Mellotron seem to react to poly aftertouch AND channel pressure, but all notes react to all notes aftertouch AND channel pressure, as if it belonged to that note, whether it belongs to it or not. So it works like, on input, aftertouch is converted to channel pressure. I wouldn't call this supporting polyphonic aftertouch, because the data for all notes is interleaved, and it will make a mess.
  
• Odyssey seems to react to poly aftertouch properly. Each note is only affected by that note's aftertouch information separately. The aftertouch sensitivity setting is SETTINGS / KYBD FILTER. It affects the filter cutoff frequency.

I didn't test any of the paid plugins, because I don't have them.

So. If you use Odyssey or capable external MIDI instruments, you can use polyphonic aftertouch. The Force's sequencer will not filter out or destroy polyphonic aftertouch data. Maybe one of the paid plugins handles poly aftertouch better, I don't know.

Maybe there's a setting somewhere which makes polyphonic aftertouch work outside the Odyssey synth plugin, but I couldn't find one.

Depending on your data, editing poly aftertouch data in the clip editor can be annoying. If you select a note which does NOT happen to have aftertouch data, the editor will reset the automation lane to some other controller type, and you'll have to re-select aftertouch from the list.

By the way, you don't have to buy a poly-aftertouch keyboard for this. The Force's pads send polyphonic aftertouch. You can try what works and what doesn't.