I personally get the best results by setting a patch’s velcoity macro to 50%.
I’m not sure the exact dB scaling here, but the top 50% would only trigger with 50% velocity. Others prefer 66% but at 100% the full dB range may miss notes that you won’t at 50-70 percent. Not a good explaination but I’ll revisit this topic later.
Thanks for the suggestion. It actually makes all the difference, at least for me. Setting the velocity to 66% gives an excellent control of the synth.
I created a thread on this a while ago.
Put the synth next to circuit or push and try to play chords on them all. The synth has terrible pad hit registration unless you use fixed velocity, which negates expressiveness dimension.
If you’re used to play synth action keys or another pad based device, then not using fixed velocity on synth gives you pain in your finger joints after some time from having to hit the pads so hard to guarantee hit registration.
It does kill the feeling when you’re playing synth - if your 3 note pad hits only register 2 from the 3(which is very common on delicate setting).
I can’t believe people are debating this tbh.
The only thing I can think is maybe units are made to different sensitivities on the pads(inconsistent build quality), or polyend staff units are broken in more(shouldn’t be a thing), or they’re used to having to thump pads and have finger strength ike a brick layer.
Please fix it. It’s annoying.
Having spent a couple of sessions today on trying settings that would respond in a way that is playable, my hands hurt enough to indicate that I’m doing my hands no good. (I’m not talking hours just 10 minutes or so.)
We need a Super Gentle setting or face damaged hands in the future. For me, it’s plain as that.
Have you tried to change the velocity macro to 66% ? With that setting, the pads become really playable.
Thanks for reply but the velocity macro has been set to 66% all the time. I did find changing some volume levels seemed to make some improvement. I guess I want a level of sensitivity to a gentle touch that others would consider too vulnerable to accidental touches (I’ve lived with the ultimate sensitivity of acoustic guitars for a long while).
I should be clear - I feel silicone pads are awful, in my experience. The ones on the Polyend devices I consider the least bad I have encountered. On the Play+ they are viable for step input but not for live playing (not what I got it for). I’ve tried all I can with the synth, I think (I accept I may have missed something, but it must be something well hidden!).
I like both machines and I want to be using them and I’m happy to put the time in to learn but this wear and tear on the hands is a real problem, not just for me, but in the long run can have bad effects for anyone. But I really don’t want to be negative about it but find something positive.
Hey there @DPB, have you considered creating a Wish for a super gentle mode and specifically mentioning the pain your having while using the Synth?
I am in no way dismissing the impact it has on you however it’s the first time I’ve heard mentioned having an actual pain using the Synth.
I’ve had many sessions that lasted hours, and while testing before the launch, was using it daily for multiple hours at a time. Never had a single issue and I’m someone who has to regularly wear a wrist brace for my right hand.
Also in my subjective experience, I feel the pads on the Synth can be sensitive to the point that I can almost blow on them to trigger them.
If you’re interested, I’d be happy to DM you and go over your settings just to be sure nothing is being missed and also make sure you don’t have a defective unit.
Thanks Dan, I don’t want to labour the point or sound angry! Your comment has made me think that silicone is used as it is translucent and it’s not the material that’s the problem. I just can’t find the sort of settings you describe. But I do think that if I feel the stress on my hands it can’t be doing good for others, not in the short term but over the years. It is why I have avoided other machines, but I really like the Polyend ones despite this issue.
I would note that I have used the Artiphon Orba 2 and the Chorda - they have very sensitive pads and I have seen no complaints about that either (lots of complaints about other things!). My nature is to see these are just how the devices are and I should get on with it.
My instinct is that it isn’t a defective unit - it’s well built and as far as I can tell it functions well, my sense is that it is simply a setting issue.
I will do a bit more experimenting and consider a Wish.
I note this thread: Synth pads hard to press (I added to that thread but I had only got my Synth a day or two previously).
I did see another comment that I didn’t pay much attention to at the time but I can’t find it again. If I recall correctly it suggested that a light touch should start with the “volume” at 10% not 0%. Perhaps this is where the problem lies. (Is a Midi message sent when a touch too light to make a sound is made? I don’t use midi yet.)
(I should add that I do not want to use fixed velocity settings - that’s removing the ability to play expressively IMO.)
I did a little more experimenting - it seems to me that there is a threshold before a touch is registered. It seems to be the same regardless of any settings - in this regard “delicate” and “tough as hell” are the same. If it is a mechanical limit then nothing can be done. If it could be set to a lower level in some way that would fix it (or at least make it as good as it could get). Perhaps the tech guys can advise what may or may not be possible?
The pad sensitivity (Delicate, Gentle…) affects mainly how hard you have to strike to go to full velocity. If you want to get subtle touch, you will need to set the volume macro of the synth (I am talking about the macro not the synth volume itself) to 70% for instance and not 100% as it it the case for all the presets. After this adjustment the pads are completely fine to play. No stress on the hands or fatigue.
As I said before, this had always been at 66% (and Delicate). Changing that doesn’t change the threshold before a touch is registered - that’s the problem I now believe. You may not feel the stress on your hands now but you may find it has accumulatively damaged them in years to come. But aside to that it just doesn’t play as well as I would hope it would. (Playing about with settings searching for a way to do this I have found better control when the note is registered - that’s welcome.)
I noticed this right away with mine, and it seems like a software issue more than a hardware issue. Here I have DearMrBlake_Newendo scene loaded and you can see that many hits on the rightmost synth pads that don’t register. Apologies for video quality; I was playing out my headphones and trying to hold my phone with my chin while using both hands on the synth. This is with grid sensitivity set to normal.
The reason I don’t think its hardware is if I don’t hold down any other pads at all, the pad I am striking registers every time. But if I am holding down any pads on the other synths, this happens. In the video I am pressing on one pad on each of the first two synths with my left hand.
Every single tap I see does register: the pad lights up as you touch it.
Check out my Tutorial posted above, I explain the steps to produce this in Experiement 6.
My guess is you can change the preset to avoid that issue.
@Mitch I don’t have any more stakes in this because I returned my Synth yesterday, however I think that a bit more involvement of the Polyend team here might go a long way.
I tried this with no speaker attached - to concentrate on the pads. They don’t light up until a certain degree of pressure is applied, just the same as no sound is made until that pressure is reached. It’s that level of pressure required I would like to see lowered.
Like I said, didn’t seem like a hardware issue. But not expected, given the device is supposed to support simultaneous play (and in this scene the rightmost synth is the master, so I want to hold down the other notes and have them transposed).
Again, if I don’t hold down the other two pads, it plays sound on each strike. That suggests it has to do with the scene, rather than the preset.
Will look at your video when at my desk. Why are you returning yours?
I tried holding down other keys down and it didn’t make any difference. At the moment I still reckon it could be software or mechanical. The techs could tell us.
It’s not a video. But I still think it gets the point across.
I do like the sound, and I’d be willing to put up with all the little things, but I found in its current state it simple gets in the way of my workflow, mostly because it does not perform well enough in the context of other instruments.
First I find balancing 3 sounds unusually hard on the Synth, which is essential in a mix where other stuff is going on as well. I find that there is a only small range of usable control in the mixer levels (my guess is that’s because the volume curve is linear). I don’t want that in a live situation, or when jamming with other people.
Then it demands too much attention. Because macros and volume/panning are not accessible via MIDI, I constantly have to jump around between switching slots and selecting pages. I’d rather use my Faderfox for controlling macros and volume, also because it has nicer knobs. And I want to automate macros, pan and volume, in my sequencer, too.
I tried getting around the first 2 issues by only using one sound at a time, but that is actually not what I bought the Synth for.
Then there’s the weird response to Osc. Volume, that, among other things, leads to some of the effects discussed here around pad sensitivity.
Maybe a little influence on my decision also had my impression that the Polyend team does not appear be too eager to engage with users, which I find weird around the launch of a product with a firmware and manual that are both very rough around the edges. I’m sure there are reasons for everything, but I had wished for a bit more.
I’m glad that I had a 30 day return window, because after two weeks I was convinced I’d keep it, took me a while to figure these things out. But finally this recommendation was what made me pack it up and send it back:
Solid advice, especially with a fixed roadmap that is kept under wraps. I decided to stick around here for a bit longer to see what happens to all the open discussions, questions and bugs.
Maybe I’ll buy another one next year, they already start popping up on classifieds, and for 60% of the price using just one voice is not a bad proposition.
I get it. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with Polyend gear. It’s 80% of the way to being the best, most fun gear around, at prices that are reasonable, but there’s so many rough edges and weird limitations. I have bought and sold and rebought and resold the Play/Play+ four times now. And I’m eyeing a fifth! I do think the company has learned some lessons, and a bunch of things I used to complain about, like closed betas, they have addressed. So I’m trying to stay positive. If nothing else, at least they create interesting, innovative gear and not just retreads.
I am the one that kind of started the thread because I was disappointed by the pads but after changing volume macro and setting it to around 70% I have to admit that the pads respond extremely well. A slight touch triggers the sound.