for better or worse (probably worse) the thing that makes people think they are bad is mostly that you need to change your technique to play them from what I have found. They still aren’t as good as some other pads but it is more so that they just seem different also. Certainly better than the Electribe 2 pads imo, if they add some good fine adjustment options I think they will actually be quite good and not just good. (thoughts based on M:C pads)
Yeah but this is wat really gets me going. The pads are what they are, fine. They nit gonna change production. But somewhere in the firmware there must already be a way to adjust them. So why on earth don‘t they giv us the oportunity to adjust sensebility. People complaining about those pads for years. Those few who seem ok with that are not helpful, they loose nothing if the pads would be adjustable.
Ableton had the same problem with push 2 and they did release an update where you could adjust the pads sensitivity and the velocity curve and shape. This made things at least workable. And those parameters need to be in the rytm or the m:c. So it feels a little rude and bitchy, giving all those complains, that they don‘t make those parameter accessable from the user level.
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Software laziness is probably the most common issue in the whole electronic music hardware universe. It’s so bad, that I’m not sure it’s laziness… I think it might be that these programmers are not very good. Sometimes people ask for pretty simple things. To tweak LFOs or envelope shapes, to give a simple option for routing one thing to a mod wheel. It’s clear these things are easy to do. They actually release multiple firmware updates… but never those. They must be far less competent than we think lol
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Yeah but what they don‘t see is that Elektron is stuck in techno world. And maybe some guy in a black suit gets the idea, that the rytm mk2 while able to sample, easily could compete with mpc if those pads would be good. Broader adience more marketshare, more sold units more styles picking up elektron stuff. Not bad for anybody. And all it would take is to just make good pads, so people who actually want feeling in their grooves are able to play stuff in. Not just ok, make it great and schwuups…
I can play real drums, I also finger drum on my AR2, I don’t find them to be bad at all but I don’t have a wide range of experience with pads so that may be ignorance (no MPC, no NI in my background).
Fixed Velocity Off + finger drumming gives you nice accents, etc… quantize off you can play behind the beat a bit here and there + good for playing in chromatic mode, all this was mentioned by others above. I probably do about 60% by hand, 40% data entry.
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Yeah, I would probably buy an ARmk2 - if it weren’t for the pads.
No way on earth am I shelling out that kinda cash for shit pads.
Sort it out Elektron!
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just moved a handful of posts out of here for trolling/bickering that was derailing the thread.
This can be a good, productive thread if we all try to stay on topic and not troll others, please.
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Ok, last post for today I promise. I read people talking about how they find the pads ok for finger drumming and if the velocity curve is to flat, just turn on fixed velocity. And this should make things work. Believe it don´t. And Finger Drumming shouldn´t be about fixed velocity and just getting of the grid by sloppy playing. This is the point, if you just want sloppyness, microtime everything haywire and go for it.
If You present a 4x4 Matrix with Pads and first Mode is “Play”, you should be able to play, if you can play. And to make sense you need to be able to play ghost Notes. When I try to play the Mk2 often times the Pad doesn´t even trigger. If you really wan´t to build grooves it´s not about getting everything of the grid and record random fader moves (while this can be fun of course).
And as said before on the M:C the Pads are so stiff I have to Hammer on them to even Mute them or Select the Track.
I see all those Feature Request, which are kind of pathetic, more like a never ending wishlists to your favorite Company. We want more LFOs, we want this and that. And I wan´t my guitar Amp to go to eleven, but it doesn´t and I knew that beforehand. It´s fine.
But those Pads are not a feature request, the are integral to a drummaschine which they were build on. It´s nonsense to have velocity pads just for retriggering static devisions. And it´s also nonsense to make them stiff so you have to hammer on them, because that prevents you from control and from light touches and ghost Noting. I know it´s not a real drumset, but there are Pads out there who giv you good enough playability and a 1500 bucks maschine that presents those 4x4 matrix of pads should be the pinacle of those maschines. This is not a feature request. Make those calibration options availably please. It´s really the absolute least you can do by messing those pads up big time, serveral times, again and again, knowingly. People bitching for years now. And even Ess said he thinks the M:C Pads are to stiff.
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Honestly, having a page where you can put a few points along a spline to easily dial in the sweet spot for the current pads would solve the problem in a practical sense. 
The math here is easy and the benefit is enormous. Because such things are mostly just set and forget for most people, such a page can easily reside somewhere in settings as a global.
I should clarify that this won’t change the tactility of the pads, just remove the need for a jackhammer to mute a track.
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The problem for most people is probably the threshold, not the velocity curve. The M:S pads simply have too high a threshold, i.e., the minimum amount of force needed to trigger any sound on the pads.
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Setting a threshold could be done with the same interface
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so you’re a wizard?
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Maschine pads are amazing… i was shocked at how bad the Rytm Mk I pads were and have heard the Mk II are only marginally better. They’re simply not ‘cushy’ enough. You need to be able to barely tap a pad and have it output low velocity and have a smooth grade up to hard-but-not-too-hard a hit required for max velocity. The Rytm failed on both of these accounts regardless of settings…
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WIZARD
Nah, it’s not even my idea. I have a friend who is trying to get the same feature added to one of those squishy poly aftertouch controllers, you know the type:
He also wants them to add slew to the aftertouch control, which could be another fun feature request.
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Anyone here use the Korg padKontrol? I swear that was my favourite pad based controller for banging out beats.
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I thought I saw a post where ESS mentioned they could work on the velocity curve for the pads. Hopefully something like a pressure setting for this comes in future
I played drums for 25 years and I still use fixed velocity on my DSI Tempest lol!
Seriously though - I like the idea of 16 velocities option for the Elektron Model series as pointed out by Ricky Tinez in his M:C review (but then again you’d sacrifice chromatic).
When “finger drumming” on pads I like to get the rhythm correct first then adjust the individual velocities. As much as we like to p-lock stuff this shouldn’t be a huge issue.
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Problem is, we all know what it means when elektron says they are working for stuff in the future. When they didn‘t sort it after the samples then I don‘t see anyone caring for the cycles in the near future.
But the Pads on the rytm are another story. I don‘t know their potential, but they can be sensible. In mute mode you just need to touch them with way less pressure than getting an inital trig in play mode which means its software. And not sorting this little thing for years after massive complains is kind of bitchy. Its no feature request, should be considered a bug. Strange behaviour.
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Thought its the cushiness myself for a long time, but its actually not. The maschine pads itself are pretty hard compared to the likes of say a beatstep. But when you play them they feel different because they are so sensible.