I am owning a used MK2 wich had the famous cross talk problem where some pads in mute mode were also muting other pads. So Elektron send me an additional foil to solve this issue. The issue is solved now. Thanks a lot for the great support to Elektron
What I noticed though that the pad sensitivity on my friends new MK2 is way higher than on mine. So I am actually able to finger drum quite well on his one. On my device I have to hit the pads pretty hard so I am using the fixed setting most of the time.
Is this something that happens over time or is there something that has changed in the newer devices ?
Do you mean that you’re able to consistently transition between lower and higher velocities on his AR MKII?
I’m also interested on this as my AR MKII (Grey) showed the cross talk problem from the very beginning and also Elektron sent me the foil which fixed the issue. But the pads are not useable for finger drumming, at least not in the real finger-drumming sense where you play multiple pads at the same time each with individual finger.
The only playable way with velocity is to play a single pad at a time with two fingers.
Maybe it has to do with some firmware limitations that they implemented on Grey MK2s to sort of broadly mitigate the cross triggering issue.
Meaning is possible that the old Grey MKII firmware has differences from the black ones, the RGB lights color scheme is one of the differences, but another one might be the velocity sensitivity reduced to mitigate this issue (which would be a terrible choice if true)…
Yes is the same firmware, but whenever you install the firmware it recognise if it’s a Grey or Black unit and applies different settings (for example the RGB color scheme).
Ahh OK. That could be the case. Do you know this for sure or is it a guess ? Problem is that most people probably do not have the chance to compare black and grey here. And the black one I can use is brand new.
AFAIK yes and they implemented the “foil fix” on the black units from factory, and my guess is that at that point they “split” the firmware settings between Grey and Black units, they surely did as they have introduced a sigthly different RGB color scheme but my guess is that they also have reduced sensitivity on the Grey ones to avoid having to potentially recall all the Grey units to fit this “foil fix”.
It’s just speculation but to me seems to be the most logical possibility…
Yeah different than MPC for sure also on the black one. But a pretty big difference between grey and black. The black is not as good as an MPC but quite OK.
I have an AR MKII in black from 2023, I have to hit the pads really hard to hear a sound (so I always turn on FIX). Also in performance mode I have to mash those buttons in to come near the max of my macro. Which feels kinda dumb, I’d prefer it to be much more lighter/sensitive.
I mean, what I really would prefer is the possibility to change the sensitivity in the settings.
put both machines in MUTE mode and tap one of the pads as lightly as you can but still registering the mute on/off activation.
while tapping the pad lightly change the mode to PLAY and se if it trigs the voices with the same sensitivity as the mutes.
If the Black AR triggers the voices at low sensitivity and Grey AR doesn’t (which is the case with Grey AR) then it is most likely a difference in the threshold sensitivity settings baked in firmware.
A workaround is to disable “velocity to vol” in the sound menu and map 2x or 3x “AMP:Volume” at max 127 in “velocity mod”.
Then you turn the amp volume in the AMP page at the minimum level you want, this way you’re getting a steeper curve and some control over the “sensitivity”.
That is at the expense of 1 to 3 velocity mod slots…
