So it seems like the Resonance Calibration function currently doesn’t work on the Mk1 as of FW 2.0-ish. I tried several times, and just for kicks I tried the mk2 button combos as well as the mk1 ones, just in case there was an undocumented change to the buttons that activate the calibration mode. No dice. The Norand forums indicate multiple other people have experienced this as well.
Kind of a bummer, because I find the top third of the resonance unusably harsh and the musical resonance range quite small.
I’m also experiencing a handful of freezes/ crashes - I’m struggling to remember what I did as it was a couple days ago, but it seemed like it didn’t like me pressing too many buttons too quickly. No sound, it didn’t react to any inputs of any kind. I was able to recreate the issue in the moment several times, but sadly didn’t write down what exactly I had done.
Figured I’d post an update on my experience thus far. I’m apparently in the mood to evaluate every monosynth I can get my hands on lately.
The Good:
This thing sounds spectacular. Nothing else I own sounds quite like it, the Norand mostly hits the acid sweetspot for me while doing a lot more. The sequencer is easy to use, the clacky keys feel nice, and the knobs feel pretty good. I love that it actually has accent and slide lanes. Parameter/ pattern randomization is fun, and one LFO per knob is a fascinating concept that I wish more synths employed. I love that the key leds are used as a visual indicator for things like filter cutoff/ pitch.
The Bad Bugs: The NM is still buggy, as I note above. In addition to the crashes, it occasionally just… doesn’t do the thing the button should make it do. Whether that’s saving a pattern, changing the midi channel, even inputting notes sometimes seems to fail. Non-Bug Issues: The LEDs on the knobs aren’t quite bright enough in moderate light - this may be the Mk2 knobs that I believe my Mk1 has on it though. In that case it’s not necessarily a fault with the device, but it makes it almost impossible to tell what’s being modulated if I come back to a patch a few days later. The key combinations are quite difficult for me to remember, though I’m sure with practice it’ll be smooth as butter eventually. I really hate that I have to set the midi pattern and volume for every single patch individually - those should be global controls.
The issue with the synth using midi channels 2/3 for additional timbres is also incredibly frustrating. I can filter the midi out, but I shouldn’t have to. It’s baffling this behavior is the default and can’t be turned off.
It sounds so, so good - almost perfect - but I’m strongly considering selling it. When it’s working, it’s incredible. When it has issues, it has big issues, and development is slow so fixes are unlikely to come any time soon.
development is slow so fixes are unlikely to come any time soon.
Is this based on only your general experience so far, or do you have any other insights?
I own a MKI, and must say I was a bit perplexed when the MKII came out, while I was still struggling with bugs, and occupied with giving feedback to the company. I felt a bit like a beta tester.
I really wish things would come to a stable condition soon, at least for the MKI. Now, hearing that people are having the same or even worse trouble with MKII is sad to hear. Mattieu is very capable, but the company seems to be a bit under equipped.
The whole industry is suffering right now, after the big corona hike. Just Music in Berlin just permanently closed it’s doors, citing: “inflation, the sharp rise in operating costs, and the low demand for luxury musical instruments in economically uncertain times”
Norand has a new CMO, who seems like the main investor. I can’t really imagine them making a lot of money, so I think once his cash injection runs out… who knows
I talked shortly with Matthieu at Superbooth23 and he told me that there are hardware updates coming for the MKII and they also wanted to create a pure sequencer without any synth engine. The work he created so far will definitely be used in other products in the future…
I just want to not think thrice about all the bugs that might come with it, before I make an update…
I don’t have any special insights - just observation from watching this thread and the Norand forum in the past. I know they’re a small company (is it just Mattieu?) so I don’t expect a constant stream of updates or anything like that.
Yeah, it feels like the Mk1 is about 80% of the way to being incredible, and the ways in which it falls short are rough. It really does feel like a beta device. Seeing Mk2 come out while Mk1 still had issues was certainly disheartening, but I took the risk on a used Mk1 anyway because I’ve seen so much praise about the Mono online.
I don’t want to spend all my time in the thread grousing - I can see that the Mono could be an absolutely incredible device. I just don’t tend to have much patience when dealing with bugs.
Some bugs are just things to be avoided and some are serious buzz-killers. But when you add to that the lack of attention to the manual, the website, and the forum they themselves set up, it starts to be hard to excuse away. Some people say that email support is immediate, some never hear back. Promises are made and routinely not kept. I was really happy with the mk1 back at firmware 1.2.3r. I talked it up in this thread and elsewhere. But things I liked went away with firmware 2.0, and there are enough reports of issues that I am actively avoiding the device. Can I get back to the halcyon days by downgrading the firmware? Consider the comparison with the Erica Synths DB-01. Almost no firmware updates since release, MIDI was always a mess, external program change is a crapshoot. Support is also hit and miss. But they haven’t broken anything more, and I think this might be better than making grand promises and then delivering something buggy way over deadline.
Yeah I’m quite saddened to agree that the latest FW has brought quite a lot of buggy experiences for me when 2.0 was on the whole quite bug free (aside from the major slide/ accent trigs bug) and I was rarely frustrated with the device. I updated to the new FW because the slide trigs bug would occasionally absolutely murder a really well crafted sequence and now I get some sort of flow breaking bug every time I use the synth now. It’s annoying because what the NM does well is nearly perfection and I’d never think of selling it but it’s an expensive synth for some of these bugs to exist in, which is already a touchy topic for me considering I bought a MK1 about a week before the 2 was announced and immediately lost about £150 off its value
I still think the mk1 is a better experience than mk2, though I don’t have direct experience with mk2, only with Morphos, which has the same pads and morphing capability, none of which I found particularly useful. So while your mk1 may have lost resale value, you wouldn’t necessarily have been served well by waiting. I think I will try to take mine down to 1.99 and see if that feels better, and if not, back further. I’ll report back here.
OK, thanks for the experience sharing.
I never upgraded to 2.0, and probably won’t, then.
It’s true I was quite happy with how it was already.
I can’t even remember what it was that hyped me up in the 2.0 FW.
But there was a couple of things as far as I remember.
Yeah you’re right, from what I see and hear from the MK2 it does feel like it’s lost a bit of edge that the MK1 has, I’m also fortunate enough to have a Sherman Filterbank to run it through so that new distortion circuit is not missed at all. I guess the frustration is more experiencing the FW updates seem to constantly bring new bugs to the fore and any of the next updates (if any) could be the last whilst still leaving bugs.
All this being said though the synth is absolutely phenomenal it’s the first thing I reach for when I need a mono, just want to clarify that I’m not here with the intention of complaining just venting a bit of frustration with the approach to FW updates it has.
I can’t speak for the Mono, but I love the morphing buttons on the Morphos. It’s the first thing that’s made my modular feel at all playable and gestural outside of sequencing and knob turning. A lot of fun with useful results.
I’m glad to hear that, that it worked for someone. It did not work for me personally. What did work, eventually, in terms of playable/gestural, was an Intellijel Planar 2.
Done. Used the original bootloader, loaded 1.99, did the memory purge. Seems to be working fine. I have my beloved page randomizer with undo/redo stack procedure back. And it does indeed feel better.
It’s a subtle change: in 2.0, undo/redo applies to all knob actions as well as the sequencer. This is probably useful in other contexts, but it breaks this particular use which was dear to me. You won’t learn this from the manual, which is identically worded in this respect for both versions.
You used to be able to run the sequencer in clocked mode by hitting Play. Now you can only run it by starting the external clock or changing clock mode to internal and pressing play. I really miss that.
Would you send me this original bootloader end explain me exactly all is needed to do the 1.99 firmware installation? please ?
I think I also prefers mood before 2.0…
Thanks!
The original bootloader is still on the machine and I will explain how to use it. The 1.99 .syx file is included with all 2.x firmware releases.
Attach the Mono to your computer with a USB-B cable, hold [PATTERN] and [RUN] (this is the original bootloader) and turn the Mono on. All the sequencer lights will flash in unison indicating it is ready for update.
On your computer, open a program to send sysex (SysEx Librarian on macOS, for example).
Make sure in the settings to set the transfer delay (between messages) to 1 or more.
Send the 1.99.syx file to the Mono. The sequencer lights will turn off and then turn on one at a time. When the transfer is complete, it takes a few seconds until the lights turn off.
Turn Mono off, and then start the purge of memory. You do this by holding down [FOLLOW], [F#],[G#], and [A#} simultaneously while turning Mono on. The sequencer lights will do the one-at-a-time turning on several more times, at first slowly, then faster. It takes a while, so be patient. Eventually the sequencer lights turn off and the keyboard lights turn on. At this point Mono should run nicely with the 1.99 firmware (which I believe is the same as 1.2.3 except that a program dump bug was fixed which would have prevented the loading of the new bootloader and the 2.x firmware).
I returned my mk2, the os feels half baked to me, it also definitely do not sound like the mk1, I did not expected to sound the same of course, but the mk1 sound it`s way more punchier, but what really turned me down was the bugs, too many for a live rig, will check it again in a few months, still some brand new mk1 around, someone in the Norand forum was talking about a possible metal enclosure for the mk1, that would be interesting, as I need it solid for live gig travel, hopefully the mk2 os gets better, I like the solid metal built…
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