The Rytm mk2 pads feel good to me better than my push2
but the retrig just doesn’t work well with live playing velocity is weird…
I can play a hat pattern and get the velocity how I want though…
But I Do wish it had a 16 velocity mode like mpc !
If there was an Octatrack with 16 pads that are playable I would ditch my MPC right away. But I know this won’t happen…
I wonder if manually changing the threshold might introduce cross talk or some other hardware related difficulties. Because if not for that, it seems pretty easy to implement, and weird that they haven’t.
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Its so sad that good products can be made unusable in some aspects, just because companys stop listening.
Took apple years to ackknoledge that their macbook keyboards are absolute crap, I mean absolute crap. Now they are changing. But it needed one hell of a lot of complaining to make people heard in the holy halls.
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Could always be, but you would be able to sort that out with a threshold parameter.
Midi sequencing wasn‘t possible to hardware limitations either 
absolutly not possible 
not bitching, iam pretty happy they implemented it.
If the threshold is high to keep something like cross talk at bay, a paramater to adjust it wouldn’t sort it out, but possibly introduce and worsen it, I would think. I’m just speculating if this could be a reason, but the speculation is that that lack of a threshold and curve parameter could be due to them trying to avoid technical problems caused by the build of the machine.
My best guess is that Elektron just doesn’t have the experience and technology at hand.
If I compare my pads on Rythm, Push 1 and 2, and MPC I would say:
- MPC pads (by Akai): best playability
- Push pads (IIRC Push 1 pads by Akai, but don’t know whether the pads of Push 2 are by Akai as well?): do a nice job, but don’t compare to MPC pads
- Rytm pads: okay for live recording, good for the other modes, but definitely not sufficient for expressive finger drumming
Let’s try to keep it fair:
- MPC like pads have been designed for playability from day one.
- Elektron switched from hard body buttons to pads …
I preferred Push 2 pads over MPC live actually regarding playability
Why?
They felt more sensitive, nicer to play. Just my feeling
Love love love my rytm mkii pads. They themselves respond like an instrument.
Sam
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Okay … for me it was the contrary. But this may be a question of the use case …
On MPC (it’s an old 5k) I do my kind of finger drumming, remixing of samples and loops, recording beats, which I guess, is quite common.
If I try to get the same results on my Push 2, I fail to record the velocities correctly. Push 1 was even worse. I like to play melodies and chords on Push, because I like the option to play on a kind of isomorphic board with all those scales, but at the end, I have to check the velocities in the midi clips and make adjustments. If I play on a keyboard, those corrections are not necessary.
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As someone who has humbly requested more LFOS, I could as easily turn around the issue of pads as something to know
And to be careful how you throw around the word
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Good topic
I am ham fisted, I have a PadKontrol and find the punishment that I inflict on it maxes it out all the time velocity wise, my ARmkii is more responsive to me as it is more expressive during an over excited beating from my ape fists…
I do really see the value of expressive touch control given the difference between my sub phatty and sub 37 with aftertouch… so I’m gonna hook up my PadKontrol to my ARmkii to see if I can smell the difference in how wikid it sounds with more responsive pads…?
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No need to feel personally attacked or to argue. If you buy a guitar with six strings it´s an obvious difference to say afterwards “Oh but I want 8 Strings” than if the six strings doesn´t swing right while playing.
Hahaha reading my response about being ham fisted when playing my ARmkii, while looking at my Avatar of me playing my A4mkii with my foot made me laugh…
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Question is, how can we who have massive problems with the Pads get through to Elektron?
i’ll chime in on rytm pads.
The lack of available videos of people playing beats (a la maschine etc) on them demonstrates that’s not their strength. I usually default to velocity off also.
however there’s a few things they’re really good at:
-
extra modulation? if you assign chosen parameters to the vel mod the unpredictability of the pads (your fingers) can act (kind of
) like an extra random LFO. -
performance mode! can’t see any reference to it in this thread and that’s where they shine imo. the fact you have to press fairly hard to go total indigo(!?) gives great depth and expression to the sound and interaction with the box.
-
aftertouch is lush
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I would suggest to explain in detail to them, what is missing exactly. Use case by use case.
Even if they would agree to improve their designs, the engineers have to get a decent understanding of the requirements.
Just to tell them, the pads are “not adequate” doesn’t help.
My guess is, coming from hard body buttons all Elektron devices had been designed to be used like a TR-XoX. We don’t know, whether one of the designers was or is a finger drummer and can just by experience tell, what we mean.
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Good point. I wouldn´t mind if they weren´t the best for finger drumming but the amount of pressure they need to even Trigger in the first place is just not good and even if you manage to get a little feeling you got so many mistriggers that it is just not useable.
Would anybody be interessted in a comprehensive text about the problem and than everybody could sign in and we could try to get in touch with the guys. I really think it shouldn´t be much work to implement calibration settings. Of course we won´t get new hardware.
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