For the 16-pad MIDI drum machines, the note layouts are static. So with every drum kit the person is hitting on only three pads for the kick,hat,snare. These pads are hit thousands of times more often than the rest of them.
So I’m wondering if there could be a ‘rotate pads’ feature, for Groove Agent, and Drum Machine. They would have a ‘Rotate Pads’ button and it will rotate the midi mapping 90 degrees. Everything will be the same, except now my bottom left sample is at the top left, etc.
This is to even out the physical abuse on the pad bed; to spread it out over time, so it doesn’t prematurely wear out in the one spot. You could rotate the pads once every six months or so. Not too frequently because you have to retrain the muscle memory each time.
I’ve asked NI for this as well, but who knows if anyone will see it my way. I would assume they would want people to wear out the gear, so they have to buy the shiny new model (planned obsolescence).
Oh ya, making four unique drum maps might work. Thanks.
But I’m kind of asking because it’s odd no one else is worried about it. So I don’t want to do it myself. If no one else does it, there must be a reason. Maybe it’s not even worth it to worry about. By the time there is wear and tear, I will probably want the Machine Mk4 or something.
This is likely the reason. Plus any quality MIDI equipment is designed to be roadworthy. And on top of that they’ve been making pads and electronic key-beds for like half a century - so plenty of time to improve reliability.
That’s true too. Even just having the machine mk3 for a month. For all these unknown drum kits I had to push every pad to find the sounds. Now I can just load an unknown kit and start playing cause I know where everything is.
True. I was also going to get some one sided furniture gel pads, cut and stick them on, to make them silent. Hearing my fingers hit the pads drives me up the wall. Some NI people are interested but some say don’t do it. But amazon refused to ship them so I’m not sure right now.
Indeed. I’m into finger drumming for a long time, it’s crucial to have constant types per pad.
Depends a lot on the pads. For example I have an old MPC 2500 which is indeed noisy after decades of usage, but at the same time, an MPC Key which is very quiet. And then, there are tricks. For example, for kicks and snares, I almost always have “Full Level” on so that I can even hit softly and the velocity is maxed. Later I edit the velocities. For hats I tend to use Note Repeat, so not that many hits. And since most of the time, finger drumming is for 2-4 bars loops, in a track perhaps 4-8 variations, there’s really not that much overhead for the pads.
