drum racks respond very poorly to pads on Akai MPK49

rubberbaby · Post by **rubberbaby** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 1:16 pm

Hi,

I really have to bang the pads on my Akai MPK49 to trigger the sounds in a drum rack (Impulse too). I have already tried different velocity settings in my controller with no luck.
The pads work much better with Reason Redrum so I assume the problem has to be on Ableton's side.

Could it be that I missed any modification I have to make in Live?

This is really bugging me and as far as my online research goes a lot of other MPK users too.

Thanks,
rubberbaby

jok · Post by **jok** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 3:48 pm

Hi,

are you using Drum Machines? If that´s the case, please try, if adjusting the Velocity Sens knob fixes the problem.
If you are working with custom Drum Racks, please adjust the Vel (velocity) parameter in the Simplers in use: try to set it to 75%. If that fixes your problem, you might want to save the Simpler with Vel set to 75% as a default preset:

- Load an empty instance of Simpler into a Midi track.
- Adjust the Vel setting
- Click into the Simpler device´s title bar and drag it into this Library folder in Live´s browser:

Library/Defaults/Dropping Sample/On Drum Rack

Everytime you add a sample to a Drum Rack, Simpler will load it now with the adjusted velocity settings.

Best,

Jörg

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 5:07 pm

it's also useful to tinker with the midi velocity device for cases where you don't like the way an instrument responds, you can make the responsiveness curve just how you like it here, including a kind of midi velocity compression / expansion.

rubberbaby · Post by **rubberbaby** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 7:58 am

thanks a lot for your instant replies.

@jok: I tried adjusting the velocity Sens knob and also played around with the Simplers Vel. There are certain improvements but not giant ones.

@Angstrom: I didn't know about the Velocity device. Haven't gotten to play around with it, but I surely will.

I will keep you updated.