QuNeo review and giveaway

[Rupert Brown]

Hey guys,
Got another comp going to win a QuNeo by Keith McMillen instruments. Its a pretty cool pad controller, you can see my full review here: http://thedspproject.com/quneo-review.
And you can enter the draw to win it here:http://thedspproject.com/win

Note: Social media stuff is NOT mandatory.
To enter all you have to do is join the mailing list, social media options just better your chances.

Interested to know what other QuNeo users think of it?

Good luck

[chapelier fou]

This is a great review ! Thanks for sharing.

[Matt_Quinn]

Long thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=172772&hilit=quneo


I think you hit the nail on the head about it being kind of useless in the studio because of the lack of precision. For me, that makes it just as useless for live performance too though I was part of the Kickstarter and have seriously yet to find any use for this thing other than standard drum pad use or clip launching.

I'm also seriously disappointed in the quality of support. I've had a lot of issues with it and have had repeated requests sent to KMI simply ignored. They have a guy who is 'Support' on their forum, but he's honestly kind of a dick to customers IMO, even when KMI is clearly in the wrong. It's not been a good experience for me with that company AT ALL. I would never buy something from them again.

That said, after ignoring this thing for the past 6 months, I've pulled it out again recently to try to get some use out of it. Still not really finding anything that my MPD18/APC combo doesn't do as well or better.

[Anubis]

Long thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=172772&hilit=quneo


I think you hit the nail on the head about it being kind of useless in the studio because of the lack of precision. For me, that makes it just as useless for live performance too though I was part of the Kickstarter and have seriously yet to find any use for this thing other than standard drum pad use or clip launching.

I'm also seriously disappointed in the quality of support. I've had a lot of issues with it and have had repeated requests sent to KMI simply ignored. They have a guy who is 'Support' on their forum, but he's honestly kind of a dick to customers IMO, even when KMI is clearly in the wrong. It's not been a good experience for me with that company AT ALL. I would never buy something from them again.

That said, after ignoring this thing for the past 6 months, I've pulled it out again recently to try to get some use out of it. Still not really finding anything that my MPD18/APC combo doesn't do as well or better.

have you tried Enhanced Note Mode? Mine is very responsive.

[Matt_Quinn]

No. I can't even get basic, stock preset changing to work properly on my Quneo, so I'm not in a hurry to add Max devices to the mix.

[Anubis]

No. I can't even get basic, stock preset changing to work properly on my Quneo, so I'm not in a hurry to add Max devices to the mix.

Then do a firmware update.

[Matt_Quinn]

No. I can't even get basic, stock preset changing to work properly on my Quneo, so I'm not in a hurry to add Max devices to the mix.

Then do a firmware update.

I've tried firmware updates no fewer than 6 times. I've tried uninstalling/re-installing more times than I can count. I've tried old versions of the software and new versions. I've tried it on my desktop and laptop. I've tried it in Live 8 and Live 9. None of them have worked properly. I've contacted support repeatedly and have not received any response at all. I've asked on their forum and been told that some random user generated a script that fixed the issue, but have never seen an official reply from KMI indicating *their* script works.

So yours works properly? Can you switch from the clip launching preset (9) to the drum pad preset (1), and then back to 9? When I do this, all of the LED feedback gets screwed up, and the horizontal/vertical sliders simply stop working.

[Anubis]

So yours works properly? Can you switch from the clip launching preset (9) to the drum pad preset (1), and then back to 9? When I do this, all of the LED feedback gets screwed up, and the horizontal/vertical sliders simply stop working.

Yes. Maybe you have a bad cable? Try another cable.

[Matt_Quinn]

I doubt it's the cable, because as long as I stay on a single preset, everything works the way it should. If I have preset 9 selected & start Live, the LEDs light correctly, and all the controls are correctly mapped to the parameters they should be. It's only the switching from one preset to another that causes havoc.

I'm not the only one it's happened to either, there's quite a few reports of the same behavior on the KMI forums. Like I said, they even acknowledged this issue and recommeded a user created script because they basically didn't have anyone working there who could write one. Of course, this is from MARCH, with no official update since. Annoying.



http://forum.keithmcmillen.com/viewtopi ... ript#p4199

Re: 1.2
by TheSupport@KMI » Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:50 pm

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story...

"The Tale of the Live Script"

We hired a person to write our Live script because none of us were comfortable with Python. The script was written and there were some bugs in it. Before the bugs got fixed this person left the company, having also never uploaded the uncompiled versions to our repository. This left us a group of people with no Python chops and no uncompiled version.

Time passes.

Now we've finally retrieved the uncompiled files, have been building our python skills, have fixed the preset switching bug, and are currently working on getting Live 9 compatibility happening.

I believe we will be releasing the uncompiled version soon! And I think there will be a minor QuNeo 1.2 update that fixes a couple of things (which I imagine will also include a script without the preset switching bug).

[Anubis]

It's only the switching from one preset to another that causes havoc.

I can confirm this behavior. It seems that the script doesn't take into account the automatic switching of the presets. You have to engage the round button (at the top left) and and do it manually. But once do this manually it does seem to eventually "catch up".
Still I would encourage you to try Enhanced mode. It's lush.

[Theo Void]

YA I remember when Quneo was in the making and just coming out. I was really excited about it and really wanted one. I never did get one and I'm kinda glad now. When I look at it, it doesn't have the same appeal that it once did. IDK, seems kinda small and generally useless.

[Matt_Quinn]

That's the frustrating part though, it's not useless, just feels sort of half finished and somewhat abandoned by KMI. When I got it, I figured at minimum it would replace my MPD18 with a smaller/lighter device that had even more control options. That didn't happen for 2 reasons, 1) I really missed the MPD's note repeat function, and 2) when scrolling past the first 16 pads in a drum rack, the MPD mapped automatically to the pads shown on screen - the Quneo did not. That however, changed in Live 9 - now neither of them now follow the on screen pads.

The other thing I really wanted it to do was to light up the pads that had notes playing in a clip, ie a simple 4/4 kick pattern would light the bottom left pad in 4/4. The problem is the notes that light the LEDs are totally different than the notes that trigger the drums, so you'd have to create a duplicate, 'translated' clip to get this effect, which is definitely not worth the time.

[peeddrroo]

The other thing I really wanted it to do was to light up the pads that had notes playing in a clip, ie a simple 4/4 kick pattern would light the bottom left pad in 4/4. The problem is the notes that light the LEDs are totally different than the notes that trigger the drums, so you'd have to create a duplicate, 'translated' clip to get this effect, which is definitely not worth the time.

see this thread
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194450&hilit=+quneo
i built a rack (only with native Live devices) that achieves that.

[Matt_Quinn]

The other thing I really wanted it to do was to light up the pads that had notes playing in a clip, ie a simple 4/4 kick pattern would light the bottom left pad in 4/4. The problem is the notes that light the LEDs are totally different than the notes that trigger the drums, so you'd have to create a duplicate, 'translated' clip to get this effect, which is definitely not worth the time.

see this thread
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194450&hilit=+quneo
i built a rack (only with native Live devices) that achieves that.

Awesome man! I will definitely give this a whirl when I get home. I feel like this will make programming drum patterns a lot more fun. Many thanks!

[Rupert Brown]

Thanks for the support guys.
I have been at the crap end of support before so I can sympathize with how annoying it can be, thats disappointing to hear :-/