Is the velocity sensitivity of the pads adjustable somehow? I really have to bang these fuckers pretty hard before it triggers at all. Impossible to play any softer hits as is.
Definitely no way to do this at the minute.
We don’t know if it’s something that will be possible to adjust in future.
kind of a show stopper for me tbh… it’d be a no brainer to add. i was keen for some analogue finger drumming
Tempest!?
Wow… it’s almost pointless to have the pads with velocity at all if you cannot adjust the sensitivity. I sure hope that it’s just a matter of a firmware update to change that, and not an actual hardware design fault like in the Akai MPD series (dead space between pads and triggers).
same issue here, sometimes it feels like there is a envelope running in the background, depending on the background enevelopes position, hitting the pad either gives it a +1 volume, or at other time hitting it with the (intended) same velocity it gives me a +7 sound increase …
Hehehe that’s funny because that’s the first machine where ELEKTRON offer velocity pads. Before this, you only get one value trig and for velocity you need to parameter lock or LFO.
Did you try to finger tap with a two fingers sticked because i notice it’s works better. I have no doubt they will update that with an OS upgrade. it’s seems a probable changement.
I find the PAD nice, i have an MPC by the past, Korg PadKontrol and Maschine which for me is the better experience i have with PADS. i think this one was between the one of maschine and the one on Novation SLMKII.
Anyway the better Drummer pad experience for hand is the Roland HPD20 and for DrumSticks is the Roland SPD-X ; if someone want to really FEEL sound/sample with hands
Yeah, I had to go in and modify my MPD pads to eliminate the dead space, which resulted in an incredibly sensitive set of pads. Now they trigger with a feathers touch. I’m just hoping that the issue with the RYTM is simply software based, and not a fault in the hardware design.
yeah, they’re not the best pads i’ve ever used. The kontrol pad has real nice sensing and i really like the feel of the mpc2500 (i know, i know the 2000 has better pads but i’ve honestly never touched one so i can’t say from experiance). however, i do think these will break in and honestly, I won’t be miffed if they come out with pad replacements in a few years that are more sensitive.
either way, for the first Elektron box with pads, it’s not bad at all. I can definitely play out my tunes. but no I can’t see a finger drumming pro choosing this for sensitivity.
I have a machine from NI and thought about using that as a controller for the pads but no luck. Anyone try this?
The pads feel similar to ableton push drum pads. Eventually my push drum pads broke in and are as expressive as the fat pads on my MPC 60. Just keep playing the pads and see if they settle in well enough. On the weekend I will try to map out the MPC 60 or mpd24 to control the RYTM and let everyone know how much more expressive it is.
Yeah, works great. Set the Maschine in midi mode. Make the 12 first pads on the Maschine send C2 on individual midi channels starting with 1. Should work in regular “stand alone mode” as well but I’ve never tried that.
Any news about this? I have an AR since 2 weeks and really like it so far. Also the pads feel good, but I would really prefer that I don’t have to hit them so hard to reach high velocity values. Hope there will be a possibility to adjust the sensitivity of the pads with a future OS update!
I don’t know. I don’t think the pads were made with finger drummers in mind. Elektron is, after all, techno oriented. I think it was designed more for performance mode pressure, which is very good.
But, yeah, the velocity for single hits is absolutely wretched. I hope they do fix it.
Did you ever do this?
A solution for this exists already, but it’s a bit time consuming to implement.
First, disable the “velocity to volume” setting for all pads. Next, go to the velocity modulation matrix, and set the desired amount of volume modulation.
Not only does this enable finetuning the velocity response, but you can make the velocity modulate just about any parameter in a sound! The possibilities are quite vast tbh 
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Nice tip. Still it is quite difficult to accurately achieve more than 4 distinct tap pressures with your fingers, looking at the vel dial on the LCD when on the matric page.
very lightly tapping, below the point of triggering the pad, does seem to cause a subtle flicker in the bulb under the pad so hopefully elektron are technically capable of lowering the threshold sensitivity. I’d like a 001 /127 velocity value to be detected by just a very light touch of the pad. Currently the requirement for 127/127 velocity is fine - it could even require a harder strike. It is the lower 001/127 value that takes too much of a strike.
Or maybe i need to train my fingers better & give the pads a good beating. I must try a midi-in external pad to see if variation is easier.
Well FWIW I use external pads, not the internal ones, although the pads on the AR seem to get a bit better over time…
Awesome tip. I am going to look into that thoroughly.
What pads do you use? Do you have them straight into the AR or run through something?
That’d be the stock pads on an MPC1000, which I also use to sequence the AR…