I’m actually having a hard time getting either “relative” modes for work on my EC4. I have the EC4 connected to my Syntakt (only) - when I pick either of the relative modes - the fader jumps between the two values (ie: 001-127). - has anyone experienced this? Is there anyway to change this? I’m just testing this with CC95 (track volume)
Thanks!
I thought about this as soon as I discovered that there’s no off switch, but then I came up with the idea that blank screen cannot get burn-in probably, there’s 4 empty group in the Live setup, 13-16, I just switch to one of them, it probably helps…
I don’t think any Elektron boxes support relative midi. So the Syntakt thinks those messages are absolute midi messages and are jumping.
Does anyone know of a case/stand to hold two small faderfox units. I have an EC4 and just picked up a a UC4.
I had the UC4 before and using the faders made the unit move, so I’m hoping by mounting them together it’ll be enough weight to keep it stable.
I may just use velcro if I don’t find something easy. I guess I could also use some solid plastic tablet stand.
Ok! Makes sense. I do find it surprising that Elektron boxes don’t support relative midi!
Seems like they (almost) figured out everything else!
I’m happy with using modwheel macros though - its a perfect box for it!
not sure how many people here know or want that but I finally found a way to utilize the 16 knobs as 16 rack macros controls in Live 11. the script that comes with the device supports only 8, I was trying to duplicate the script and figure out how to modify it but without success, there’s too many things already mapped there and I could not find proper documentation how to actually write the python scripts.
by using the UserConfiguration.txt file, there’s an empty template in the current Live installation folder, not sure how it works on windows (you can probably find it somewhere on Ableton site) but on mac it’s ~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 11.2.7/User Remote Scripts, you can quick navigate there by pressing Cmd+Shift+G in Finder and navigating to that path, of course replace the Live folder with the version you are using.
after creating a folder Faderfox EC4 Custom and copying the UsersConfiguration.txt into it I could now select it from the MIDI Control Surface menu and send it to the EC4:
in the UserConfiguration.txt all you need to do is choose which setup/group you are going to use and figure out the midi channel and 16 cc of that setup/group, so in my case I used setup 15 / group 2 which was setup on channel 14 and cc’s 16-31.
in the config file I set:
GlobalChannel: 14
Encoder1: 16
Encoder2: 17
Encoder3: 18
Encoder4: 19
Encoder5: 20
Encoder6: 21
Encoder7: 22
Encoder8: 23
Encoder9: 24
Encoder10: 25
Encoder11: 26
Encoder12: 27
Encoder13: 28
Encoder14: 29
Encoder15: 30
Encoder16: 31
EncoderChannel1: -1
EncoderChannel2: -1
EncoderChannel3: -1
EncoderChannel4: -1
EncoderChannel5: -1
EncoderChannel6: -1
EncoderChannel7: -1
EncoderChannel8: -1
EncoderChannel9: -1
EncoderChannel10: -1
EncoderChannel11: -1
EncoderChannel12: -1
EncoderChannel13: -1
EncoderChannel14: -1
EncoderChannel15: -1
EncoderChannel16: -1
EncoderMapMode: Absolute
restart Live and boom, you have 16 macros support
Does this controller have parameter feedback ?
I would love, if the firmare allowed different cc when a button is pressed, that would allow so cool integratiom with tracktor.
I opted for a midi fighter twister instead of the EC4 (because of the different cc when a button is pressed and because the encoders are higher resolution, about 3x that of the EC4) and the build quality is really nice. It looks good too.
Hi there,
I am interested in a MIDI Controller mainly to Control my Send FX in Ableton Live.
I use some of the Valhalla Stuff, Delay, Reverb and Replika from NI and it would be great to could have easy and direct access to perform with the FX via the MIDI Controller.
Unfortunately Iam not sure if this would work well and I don´t know what type of Controller would be better for that purpose - the MIDI Fighter Twister or the Faderfox EC4.
(I don´t have much space for a bigger device)
Maybe some of you have experiences regarding that topic and would be so nice and share some thoughts here.
I went through a lot of hemming and hawing between these two and decided on the midi fighter twister. I really like it. I don’t think the screen of the EC4 would be any more useful than the colored rings of the twister and the build quality and aesthetics of the twister is definitely better. The encoders are also about 3x the resolution as the EC4. It is also quite a bit cheaper than the EC4 as well. Neither developer is very good as far as firmware updates so you really have to go with what features they currently offer.
Note that the Midi Fighter doesn’t work with DIN MIDI, just USB, but sounds like that’s fine for your setup.
Thank you for the hint,
I guess a USB wired MIDI-Controller should be OK for me.
When I need to control a hardware Synth via a MIDI Controller, I can use my iConnectivity MIDI 4+ device.
I couldn’t find any documentation reference to the 3x higher res of the encoders, but just wanted to say that the EC4 can be very high res in 14 bit, for example this is very fine tuning for the Pro C2 threshold, and even though it’s mapped to a rack macro and it displays 0-127 you can actually fine control the threshold by decimals.
Would you explain that higher resolution? Encoders have steps. One step = One increment, so the resolution of both devices should be same, when it comes to “smoothness” of values sent out over MIDI.
What I could think of is, that there are more steps on one full turn, because there are quite different configurations of encoders out there.
There are also those Encoders, where you can feel every step or those that are smooth (like on Elektron devices), both send the “same” values, but one feels more rough than the other.
afaik resolution refers to how many steps you have, so a standard 0-127 have 7bit resolution which has 128 values, a high resolution value like pitch bend/nrpn/mod wheel or 14bit has 16k something values so it’s very fine tunable, there’s a reference for this in the EC4 documentation.
IRL example: on AR the sample start/end is an integer number from 0-127, with long samples (30s) when you change from 0 to 1 to 2 to 3 etc, the jumps are very coarse and you cannot “fine tune” the sample start or have a smooth granular effect.
on the DT these values are decimal, so you have ~100 points between 0 and 1, so when you scroll between 0-1 you get smooth transition and you can have smooth granular effect.
same goes for anything that 128 steps is not enough, like filter with high resonance etc.
for some things 128 is more then enough, for example having a mix value in a delay/reverb or send fx.
another example is the offset ratios in the DN, they are very sensitive so adjusting them with 127 values would be terrible, it’s great that DN supports nrpn and I can use smooth value transition on the DN params with decimal values.
there’s another type of smoothness and that’s the encoder acceleration, i.e. how do you want it to react to your physical turn, so you can have faster change when turning faster or no acceleration, these are also controllable with the EC4 which is nice, but personally I leave it on max value as I want consistent feel across the encoders.
every encoder in EC4 supports 14bit and it’s actually relatively easy to set it up directly from the device and not going to software, I like it actually…
btw if the MFT has 3x resolution it would mean that it can support 16383*3=49149 steps which would be insane amount of control over a value but it would take you forever to scroll from 0-49k 
The higher resolution encoders on the MFT refers to the hardware and not 7/14 bit values IIRC. So a 360 degree turn of the knob would have more increments/decrements than a lower resolution encoder. So the value range would be the same (I’m not sure if the MFT has 14bit), but a high-res encoder controller would get through the range faster in terms of physical degrees of turn, not factoring in any acceleration.
maybe I’m wrong but if we’re talking about physical acceleration as demonstrated in this video, then setting EC4 to 14bit with no acceleration will have pretty much the same effect…
imo both are great choices, you can’t go wrong here, I don’t think that it would be an issue having fine or coarse control with both of them, the main differences for me were:
I briefly tried my UC4’s encoders in 14bit mode in Reaper with Realearn and while that’s ok for making tiny adjustments for some parameters it just took too many turns to get from 0 to 16383 for it to be that practical for a lot of things. You can turn the acceleration to max but even then I think it was far from ideal for my purposes of trying to make a software delay FX controller with smooth time parameter adjustment.
I was considering getting the MFT because even though it doesn’t have 14bit AFAICT the higher res encoders should put out more steps per turn allowing me to set up Realearn to use the knobs in relative mode and tweak the min/max step sizes, which would give me decently smooth but fast control.
But ultimately I’ve realised that endless encoders aren’t really ideal for what I’d need, and something like the Shik N32B which supports 1024 values for each of its finite potentiometers would be more suitable and performance friendly.
Yes I am talking about steps per 360degree turn. The EC4 is about 35 or so and the midi fighter twister is about 100 or so. I am not talking about the resolution of the midi data.
