Welcome. You can lower the VDep setting in the Pads menu (p19 of the manual) to make it more predictable:
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Thanks Craig for the welcome and the tip. I’ve been using the pads with fixed velocity, so I think the velocity modulation shouldn’t matter?
I’m going to give it some more time and practice but might end up using a separate MIDI controller for live finger drumming.
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Yes, give it some more practice. If it’s fixed velocity, my tip won’t help. The pads are fairly small, but with a bit of practice, I’m able to do reliable snare rolls with two fingers etc. I’m using M:C not M:S for full disclosure, but I’m sure they’re the same pads/sensitivity. In fact, I love finger drumming on the thing so much that I just get lost playing around instead of recording music haha.
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Yes they’re not sensitive enough. The firmware update does nothing to help as you really need to bang for it to even register as a hit. It is not even possible to get full velocity when you hit it as hard as you can and even worse the inputted velocity when hit with max force is all over the place.
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totally agree, 1.12 doesn’t make the pads any softer. these pads suck
I like the suggestion of increasing the internal sensitivity by a factor. Omits any hardware “faults” and allows more control.
I’d prefer 50% higher sensitivity on my AR mk1
I just returned a M:C because of the stiff pads, very unfortuante as it is a superb machine otherwise.
The sensitivity settings don’t allow for it to register light strokes, I believe it is a physical threshold that is too high.
It gave me physical pain in the wrists. I tried swapping hands and different techniques of hitting quicker with less pressure from different angles as suggested elsewhere. After a while I became conditioned to feel pain only be thinking of using the device, there was nothing more I could do.
To my surprise, members of another forum told me that selecting tracks with light touch was easy for them, so maybe I had an unordinary unit, I wonder.
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New product which I’ve just started to try out, watching True Cuckoo’s Mega Tutorial.
The T1-T6 pads are very non-responsive. I have a solid level desk beneath, and have to hit unhealthy hard to trig the pads despite this.
The T1 is somewhat more stubborn than the other ones.
The noise of hitting the physical pads masks the weak sample(kick drum of Factory preset Let It Swing A16 TR1) sound - using DT990 headphones with 2i4 interface.
The kick is by default velocity 127. And the pattern plays nicely at set main volume.
When hitting even and hard(too hard in my opinion) repeatedly the pad register vel 40 to 50. One single very hard hit rendered 90.
This can’t be right, not fun, not musical, and I guess that the circuitboard won’t live long with this. And it’s disturbing.
Ironically, I also chose the rubber pads of the Models over Digis’ clicky buttons to avoid disturbing sleeping family members at night.
When set to fixed vel 127 things work, I can push rather than hit the T-buttons. Though, it would be nice to effortlessly in a musical way mimic what Cuckoo did in his tutorial.
This is not my first “drum machine”. I have a Zoom RT-123, a DR-660 and a DR-110.
Hate to spoil the party, really want to like the product, honestly, but this is not cool.
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Search the forum. You are not the only one having this issue. For some people its ok, for some its not. You can set the sensitivity to trigger full velocity on every hit as far as I know but the pads are still shit.
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I have the same issue on the M:C … it’s all too easy to miss a hit by hitting too softly.
If a sensitivity adjustment should turn up in a firmware update to address that I’d be very happy. I’m more bothered about the missed hits than the range of sensitivity.
I personally find them totally unusable. Even with velocity off they just dont trigger when i want them to
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I’m not really having any missed hits issues…
Maybe I just got lucky or I’m inexperienced.
Is it dropping hits at the moment the pad is struck, or are you live recording a track, but on the next playback loop it’s missing some hits?
For the latter, could it be the scale for the track being recorded is too short?
Maybe try a longer track length with a higher multiplier and turn off quantization. Going from 16 steps at x1 speed to 32 steps at x2 speed will double the resolution.
I’ll add that I’m using a Model Cycles though. Maybe there’s a difference in how their pads work?
this
Should have searched the forum before purchase.
Was occupied with studying midi and other stuff.
Can’t almost believe the M:S is released in this way.
Cuckoo’s batch seems to be more sensitive, he doesn’t hit hard.
A faulty batch after all? Mine are made March this year I believe.
I open my MS today, to see if I could do “something” to make the pads softer like the others in the device. After opening, the pads have a black film that the others don’t have, between the pads
and the board, (all the buttons and pads are rubber that contact the board not a mechanical like
other devices). I tried without this black film and they don’t work at all.
I notice the problem with the pads being so stiff, is that they don’t have any travel like the others
in the device, they a simply a hard block of silicone with no movement! I think they made it this way to give the sensation you are hitting a MPC pad. but with this small size it not worked for them!
The simple solution is to ask Electron to make the pads like the other buttons with a bit of travel in it, and sell it to owners so they can fit it, or other after market pad supplier step in.
World be so rad if MPCstuff came up with super fat pads that are more playable, like they’ve done for the MPC and SP-404.
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That’s not a solution at all. Buttons are simply on/off switches. You can’t get a range of values from them (unless you build some additional sensors into them to measure how fast they get hit).
Pads on the other hand apply pressure onto a sensor which converts the applied pressure to an electric measurable quantity (for example a change in resistance). Pads with “a bit of travel” make absolutely no sense.
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Hi, Craig!
After a quick try:
Even if lowering the VDep which makes the sound louder the lower you get it still takes crazy much energy to trig and make it respond to gradual harder hits.
For example, at VDep 100 it’s possible, hitting with much effort, to hear a difference.
VDep set very low, at maybe 10, the sample plays more fully but no significant increase is heard no matter how more hard I hit.
So it’s not a satisfying solution, the pads T1-T6 don’t become more sensitive. Still VDep 100 is better than 127.
I think I’ll go for external pads with this.
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Has anyone tried using drumsticks on them? I’m only half joking. I wonder if you would be able to produce a roll this way. I know it’s not practical but I’m curious to see if anyone’s attempted this. Not at home to try right now.
I hear you. They are tough. I was able to get passable results using my index and middle fingers together for each hit, but having since got an Analog Rytm Mk2, I have to say that the larger pads really make a difference. Maybe a cheap Akai pad controller would be a good solution for you? It’s a really shame that the sensitivity can’t be adjusted tho 
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