I picked up the S2400 about a month ago from Perfect Circuit, and have spent about 40 hours with the device and manual. A lot of this box is beautifully thought out, though I’m finding myself running into weird details that don’t make much sense to me.
At the moment, I am trying to sequence drums on my Nord Drum 3P, and would like to use MIDI velocity to create dynamics. I would like to use step sequence (scrolling to time step) or TR mode to create steps with different velocities. Pads are in pitched mode, and dynamic pads are off. I’m using the level slider to set the velocity. The pads themselves respect this, however the steps entries are always 127. This happens in step mode (bash pad to enter event) or TR mode (adjust fader, and expect step of different velocity). Faders locked and unlocked just to be sure.
Here’s the rub - it works beautifully for pitch, but not velocity (level button). The desired (non-multi) workflow is fine using samples.
Is there a buried setting I’m missing, or is this the actual behavior? Thank you in advance.
From the manual: “Pitched: The pad sends out MIDI note on/off messages. The pitch and velocity of the messages is set in level and pitch fader mode, just like sample tracks.” p82.
“The faders set the level of each track. Level is recorded into the pattern. If dynamic pads are turned on, then the pad pressure sets the level, and the level faders are ignored.” p25
This feels related, but I’m not seeing multi-sync in MIDI land:
I tried the “Velocity In” setting this morning, as the manual states that this will disable the faders similar to dynamic mode. No dice, unfortunately.
Falling all the way back to the numeric event editor - you can scroll down to the velocity, hit encoder, and then rotate to tweak. This is fairly tedious. Some of the other controls (monitor in volume, for instance) allow you to punch in numbers, which is considerably faster.
Have you looked in the midi sync option or settings , I can’t remember where m there is options to set what’s transmitted or not for each type of port. One was send velocity I think, I maybe wrong this is from memory and it may be nothing to do with it.
I just remember in the A Ball video that the xOx trigger should print what ever the tracks settings are at , at that time.
I’m away gonna look when I get home
I’m interested to find out because I have a Nord 3p too that I want to sequence
All I can find is you need velocity in set to off so the faders control velocity.
Nm , I see you have tried that. Is record n when in tr mode , does it need to be on ?
I set the knobs and faders to send CC’s to the ND3 - get pumped about that, because I was hearing a lot of potential that I hadn’t heard before.
Back to the topic - I tried the velocity in bit, and have the pads set to “dynamic off”. I’ve done a fair amount of toggling settings just in case there is a “last touched” kind of bug. I’ll experiment with record on or off, but I’ve gotten this to work with sample banks and with pitch in MIDI.
Right now I have two S2400 MIDI tracks pointing to one ND3 track such that I can do accent and on/off levels, and get more knobs for CC’s. I’ll play with that as well, perhaps falling back to one S2400 channel only.
The velocity response of the ND3 is glorious, which is why I’d really like to get this working.
Thank you for taking a look. Any perspective is appreciated.
Yeah the only other possible setting I found was record fader movements , like sample override parameters , but like you say , you probably tried every possible combo.
Be good to hear is this a known issue or not or whether is localised in some form.
I actually rigged up my nord 3p to my mc707 , but I seem to remember the CC options were limited , although as with most FM u can stumble on some great things.
I bet it’s a lot of fun from an Elektron sequencer
Yeah, I tried the “record fader movements” toggle.
You mention Elektron gear, and, truth be told, part of the post is figuring out if I need to drop back to my Digi until this gets fixed. The S2400 is a whole lot more likable, but there are weird deal breaking details, or just behavior that is really tough to figure out.
Any ISLA developers have perspective on this? Am I running into an expected behavior, did I miss a toggle, or is this something that needs to get fixed? Thank you in advance.
Hey Kpuc, I got the shift-step working, that does take you to the individual steps very nicely. Thank you. I was still needing to manually edit the velocity using the encoder. You’d mentioned “pads to dynamic” and I was wondering if you’d been able to shift-step and then enter velocity with the pads? I toggled dynamic in track settings, global settings, and the “velocity in” just to make sure. My parameters windows has the knobs and fader CC’s above velocity, are your CC’s off?
h4ndcrafted - adjusting level and pitch works great in TR mode for sampler tracks, but no amount of toggling known dynamic/velocity settings gets level to work for MIDI tracks. Is there any scenario where it has worked for you? If I am seeing a bug, my suspicion is the use of CC’s, though I turned them all off last night as an experiment with no luck.
Hey @r3d3, I gave it another go tonight to try to figure it out. You’re right about dynamic off. I was able to use Level and fader but it’s a bit odd the way it handles it, especially in TR mode.
From what I can gather, it’s best to layout a sequence in TR, then adjust the knobs and fader for the step you want to adjust, then you have to remove the trig and re-enter it with the adjustment. Very cumbersome.
I got a decent pattern going but then I got some kind of midi glitch that stopped all midi from being received. Maybe a feedback loop or something. I rarely use USB for midi, so it could have been a setup error on my part.
When I have a bit more time I’ll try it with some hardware and see if it works better.
Bumping this back up - there is no combination of toggles that gives front panel control of velocity for MIDI-only tracks. @bradholland I wanted to make sure somebody at ISLA saw this.
I’d like to use either step edit or TR mode to program sequences on my Nord Drum 3P. DIN MIDI cable to ND3, October23 firmware. No matter what settings I try, I get velocity=127 for every trigger event. This is either a bug or a deeply buried setting.
Manual, page 82, states: “Pitched: The pad sends out MIDI note on/off messages. The pitch and velocity of the messages is set in level and pitch fader mode, just like sample tracks.”
MIDI track settings - dynamic = off, pad mode = pitched, record knobs and faders = on, sync menu velocity in = off. Step edit, level mode lit, fader mid-throw, notes entered by pad, velocity=127. TR mode, notes entered with mute/solo, ultimately the same deal.
Alternate, dynamic = on, pad mode = pitched, record knobs and faders = on, velocity in either on or off. Step edit, mixer mode, use pads to enter trigs, velocity=127.
For the time being, my Digitakt is back in my setup. I’ve spent a solid 50 hours with the S2400, and I have spent a great deal of time cross referencing chapters of that manual. I might have missed something. This has been a large time investment and I’m not at “usable” yet.
Tagging ISLA folks and a few active beta testers, and asking for a response. Please pardon any imposition, however I need to get some clarity on this issue or move on to other gear.
I cannot adjust velocity from the front panel on the MIDI-Only tracks using either step edit or TR Mode. I have tried dynamic on/off, (sync) velocity in on/off, record fader/knobs on/off, in level mode (button lit up), and pad mode is set to pitched. All combinations of this result in velocity=127.
Many aspects of this box are beautifully thought out, and this seems like a bug or a very subtle combination of settings. Any insight is appreciated.
It’s great to hear that pad velocity will be added to step edit. That will be a nice improvement to the MIDI sequencing.
In addition, in TR mode, it would be great if the mute/solo triggers could read the faders velocity level (when in “Level” mode). This currently does work for pitch in pitch mode, but not for level. Thank you for considering this.
