MPC shines through the circumference of the pad base. It’s a smarter system as far as being able to look directly at them in a dark room rather than the RYTM’s blinding lights, however, it could possibly be interpreted as less distinct if you’re accustomed to the full-on solar flare of AR pad states. I’m accustomed to the MPC shine through style so to me RYTM seems like it would burn my retinas.
you could definitely do that using a 2-part molding box but would still require a bit of trial and error, however duplicating an existing part which is already from a fully tooled mold is much much more doable than starting from zero.
not my intent specifically to deter you, just to call attention to the fact that in this topic where OP wants to know if something like this is possible, of course it’s possible, but not without significant resources at your disposal.
You may indeed have all necessary skills and a ton of resources, but at the end of the day, time is still a valuable asset so we can only make decisions based on how much of any of these we have available to us and if your time is valuable for other things too then I don’t blame you if you were to decide this is too much time to spend on one project with strong incentive but limited payoff.
In fact I commend your practicality! When I get very involved and don’t look where I’m going sometimes things end up in a state where I cannot move backwards or forwards with it and therefore have lost more than I gained, but it’s by that same token that I learn these lessons and by proxy you can learn them too without the added expense!
I can design and 3D print a mould for the pads relatively easily and share the file (would probably take a few iterations to get there with the tolerances).
Then I have to find the correct hardness for the silicone share that too, but I can already pretty much guess one in the ballpark (definitely not hard as a rock like the originals).
Probably would go with a thick layer of harder silicone for the base and a thinner layer of slightly softer silicone for the actual pads.
For the lights, if one wants he could do a third black layer on top of the pads (MPC style) or leave them all white like the originals.
Now obviously I can imagine not everybody want or have the time to mess with silicone moulding also because ideally it needs a vacuum chamber to remove any possible air bubbles, so maybe I can make some and sell them for those who aren’t so DIY inclined or have limited time.
I’m willing to bet $ that the actual part of the Rytm’s control board where the underside of the pads make contact with the circuit is nowhere near as sophisticated as AKAI’s or Native Instruments’. It can’t simply come down to the “choice of rubber used”…Elektron would have fixed that in MK2 if it was merely a matter of material cost.
Not trying to throw cold water on your awesome idea…and who knows, the gains made by molding a new pad may have commensurate value. We are certainly curious.
As I said before, at this point knowing that we can’t improve pads sensitivity due to the bottleneck of firmware sensitivity threshold and cross-trigger filtering, my intention in making softer pads would just be to address the awful hardness of the original pads, and make then more comfortable to be played.
And no the actual part of the board is probably very similar to that on the MPC, what makes the difference is the carbon sheet and the mechanical implementation of the whole stack of pads / carbon sheet / contacts, if well implemented covers probably a good 50% the remaining 50% is proper software implementation (xtrig filtering, velocity curves etc.)
Where I think Elektron may have failed is the mechanical implementation, which in turn made the software implementation also bad and too strictly “filtered” in an attempt to correct for a bad mechanical implementation of the pads.
However I’m still confused by the fact that when the pads are only controlling the MUTES, then they are very sensitive and without cross triggering issues.
So I will conclude that its probably a software/hardware limitation, whenever the pads have to control the full 5 sets of velocity controlled parameters + 5 sets of aftertouch params + the midi notes (for each pad) it’s probably reaching some kind of software/hardware/latency limitation which cripples the pad sensitivity performance.
What Elektron can do which would be very welcome is to add a few different user definable velocity curves and a velocity lower and upper limit parameter.
Right now I do that by disabling “velocity to vol” in the sound settings and setting “amp volume” in a velocity mod slot, then that velocity mod parameter controls the upper velocity limit and the Amp Volume in the “AMP” page controls the lower velocity limit.
This way I can get the pads to play in a more restricted range which seems to work better for finger drumming.
And yeah, I’ve spent a lot on ideas and fixing up old synths/FX boxes but they’ve only really increased my knowledge, none of that has saved any money, it costs a lot more to custom / mod anything.
I also used to mod my car, but similarly I think I just need a grocery getter from time to time. And rarely in the end cheaper than having something better from the start.
Again, “can do” versus can do well, easily.
I don’t think the formulas are going to be sold by smooth-on. Would be interesting to know what a comparable one would be, though I doubt the MPC aftermarket mod company will give you their materials vendor
It’s fun to verify hypotheses like that, given enough time and opportunities to rev out better solutions, non-mass market tooling and the like.
On my point of view I’ve actually learned how to fix/build things properly, loosing some money at first yes, but saving a lot of money later, and actually doing a much better job than any random repair shop would here in my town.
As a hobby collector, I’ve used different silicone mold formulas, and there’s definitely variance in firmness/bounce/opacity, there’s materials costs, and there’s however many wasteful bounces of mold, cast, until you figure out what’s perfect for you.
You are speaking of how the silicone squares feel from the start, and neither Elektron nor MPCStuff are squirting into a tray from a caulk gun so yeah it’ll be an interesting factor to validate your interest in where one company or another could have better action. I think the other aspect worth testing will be casting the entirety of the pad (don’t believe the Rytm is designed with individual “buttons”) so action on one won’t trigger the other switches.
I love making custom stuff, but usually because I’ve exhausted all other (cheaper) commercial options, whatever doesn’t tend to exist in any similar form.
All that I get! Soldering, fixes, DIY builds, all great.
Metal fascia, plastic, softer goods fabrication, that’s a commitment!
Would like to make more connections with local machine/front panel shops/industrial makerspaces, but haven’t prioritized that over some other classes.
I don’t own an AR at the moment and I’d forgotten about that!
By deduction it must either be the aftertouch feature, or velocity sensitivity, or both. Perhaps it requires more samples to distinguish between soft/hard taps and the aftertouch phase intended by the user, and it needs a clearer and therefore stronger spike in values to be sure there’s a tap and not a random fluctuation or a fluctuation in an aftertouch phase!
I’ve vied for an option to disable the aftertouch feature for this reason, but was (somewhat understandably) ignored.
Overthinking is fun. And annoying to self and others! But also fun.
The big difference is that nobody’s arguing whether it’s “theoretically possible” so much as whether it’s easy, cheap, and quick, and whether someone is likely to do so themselves, possibly going through a few Rytms through less reversable mods.
As well, whether one wants a RytMPC (of Theseus) bad enough
There’s always going to be more possibilities when it’s your time and money and abilities (and service/support!) over what someone can craft at scale in however long product has to make it to manufacturing.
Whether it’s upgrading the switches, finding the right feel of silicone, finding out what 3d printed materials will hold up to finger drumming, replacing the front panel, this isn’t a weekend project.
I suppose also figuring out what is actually materials and what is at the firmware suppressing double-triggering will be a secondary investigation.
