Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

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cwdudley
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:01 am

Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by cwdudley » Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:18 am

I was under the impression these respond to the lightest touch, for getting into the groove with melodies. But I'm finding Push 2 only responds to harder strikes, making it tough to really do melodies without pushing quite hard (maybe thats why its called the push . . . )

I thought I read somewhere that with the original Push it could be adjusted to be so sensitive as to trigger it's own pads from vibrations in the room (without even touching them), so I was expecting the slightest touch to trigger notes.

Is this how pads on hardware controllers like Maschine & Push are supposed to work? I really have no prior experience with them.

I know it's irritating to help the noobs with dumb questions, but I've got nowhere else to go! Thanks so much


https://youtu.be/vMZcv1IEg4I

Here is a video of me demonstrating. Watch the last 10 seconds and listen to the force of each strike. Please excuse the rubbish technique!

I know this is not a place for support, just curious as to overall experience with pads to better calibrate my expectation and return this if I need to. I got a used one off Ebay.

cwdudley
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:01 am

Re: Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by cwdudley » Sat Jun 29, 2019 3:44 am

Specifically this is the best example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDulZXc ... e=youtu.be

pottering
Posts: 1873
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:41 am

Re: Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by pottering » Sat Jun 29, 2019 3:59 am

All pad MIDI controllers need to be hit with some strength, if they responded "the lightest touch" the user wouldn't be able to rest the fingers in the pads.
♥♥♥

jestermgee
Posts: 4500
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2010 6:38 am

Re: Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by jestermgee » Sun Jun 30, 2019 10:37 am

Have you tried adjusting the sensitivity thresholds? You can adjust them to play from a feather.

cwdudley
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Jun 29, 2019 12:01 am

Re: Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by cwdudley » Sun Jun 30, 2019 3:41 pm

Here's an example of what makes me second guess the sensitivity. This is an Ableton Push, responding to clearly much less:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEa2MXHBkB0

Is there a known difference between the two?

blof_eld
Posts: 73
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by blof_eld » Sun Jul 07, 2019 11:53 pm

I had problems with mine, eventually Ableton Support replaced it for a nominal fee.

I took a video of it, https://youtu.be/EQEzU3QVYfc

Anyway, after replacing, my Push 2 is 1000x better, although still not as sensitive as my Push 1 was.

I used to have my Push 1 set to -15 sensitivity or something like that - as sensitive as I could get it without stuck pads.

Anyway I'm happy with the Push 2 now although truth be told I would like the pads to be even more sensitive.
jestermgee wrote:
Sun Jun 30, 2019 10:37 am
Have you tried adjusting the sensitivity thresholds? You can adjust them to play from a feather.
I can't get my new Push 2 to be feather-sensitive with any settings. It's sensitive enough, but not feather-sensitive.
pottering wrote:
Sat Jun 29, 2019 3:59 am
All pad MIDI controllers need to be hit with some strength, if they responded "the lightest touch" the user wouldn't be able to rest the fingers in the pads.
I don't want to rest my fingers on the pads. If I'm touching a pad, I want a note to play. On the Push 1 I could adjust it so I could not rest on the pads without a note playing. On the Push 2, I can't get it to be that sensitive.

cwdudley, I'll check out your videos more later on (at work now), but from that second one you posted, it looks like yours may be faulty like my first Push 2 was.

blof_eld
Posts: 73
Joined: Sat Aug 29, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Noob Question: What is the Minimum touch to trigger a Pad

Post by blof_eld » Mon Jul 08, 2019 1:11 pm

Watched your videos cwdudley. It's hard to tell from your video how hard you're pressing the pads.

But just from the fact you're asking the question, it makes me think yours is faulty like my first one was. It was sort of weird, not completely terrible but sort of unpredictable to play and insensitive and ruins the flow.

When you have a working Push, you don't spend your time making videos to upload to youtube and posting asking about pad sensitivity, you're too busy actually having fun playing!

So I'd say you should get in touch with Ableton support.

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