rbowser


Cool, Glyn - Glad you're happy with the AT.  Do you play standing up?  I'm sitting in my home studio, and the only way I can get the AT action to happen with key pressure is if I press down as hard as I would to roll out bread dough, and that's pretty hard.  The AT does kick in, but it's totally impractical, how hard I have to push.  Standing gives me more leverage, but still not enough, and I don't plan on standing here to play. .

I can play it sitting. Currently the A-Pro is on my higher shelf with my old XP-10 in the slightly better ergonomic position on the lower shelf. The amount of pressuer required is higher than I would have thought necessary, there is certainly no chance of triggering it by accident !!  When I get chance I will try the other settings.
 
My problem is I am enjoying having two keyboards too much. I think the XP-10 will remain in use, stuck on channel 1, until it finally dies. Then I be looking for another keyboard.

Shambler


Hi Glyn, how easy is the aftertouch to trigger if you just use 1 little finger?

On the APro  it is quite uncomfortable, but for example on a Yamaha Motif it is easy to trigger the aftertouch with just light pressure from one finger.

Now that's the acid test, I gave it a go and you are right. It requires too much pressure to be comfortable with the little finger.

FWIW I found curve 2 gave the best response.

Rabid


After touch can really clog up the MIDI stream. This is why Cakewalk and some other DAW's default aftertouch to be off. I wonder if this is also the reason after touch is stiff on Rolands. To prevent normal playing form sending after touch data. Over the years I guess I have become used to Roland's after touch.

Hi, Rabid - I remember the old days of using hardware sequencers when After touch was a super rare spice to use very sparingly.  My Alesis MMT8 would fill up fast with too much of any continuous controller.  I can't remember the memory size in that unit--?  Teeny compared to what we work with nowadays.

I think you're right that the designers have made the Roland keyboards so AT isn't accidentally triggered.  Problem is, though, that I can't make it trigger consistently no matter which curve I use and how hard I press on the keys.  I'll stand up and put all my strength on the keys, and I'll be lucky if I get a small smattering of AT.  It's just totally unworkable.

And so I stick with my map that has AT assigned to the pitch stick.  That works for a lot of the instruments I use.

Thanks for the tip, Scottkrk, about curve 2.  Unfortunately, none of the curves do it for me.  Oh well!

Randy B.

I did some tests.

First one is trying each of the curves. I pressed middle A on the A300, and pressed down as hard as I could.

Obviously, 4 is totally useless. 1 is crappy as well. I almost maxed out on 3.
Also notice how the initial velocity increases - probably the result of me getting pissed.

Next I was trying to play something (some random notes) with a "real world" attempt of aftertouch. Curve is set to 3.

Well, it's possible. Very hard to control the level, but I guess we are ****ed anyway. So better practice this instead of ****ing about Roland's support.
I must say that I also own an EV-5 pedal, so whatever vibrato I need goes there. AT could be sort of an "on-off" switch for me.

manenbu


I did some tests.

First one is trying each of the curves. I pressed middle A on the A300, and pressed down as hard as I could.
 
Obviously, 4 is totally useless. 1 is crappy as well. I almost maxed out on 3.
Also notice how the initial velocity increases - probably the result of me getting pissed.

Next I was trying to play something (some random notes) with a "real world" attempt of aftertouch. Curve is set to 3.
 
Well, it's possible. Very hard to control the level, but I guess we are ****ed anyway. So better practice this instead of ****ing about Roland's support.
I must say that I also own an EV-5 pedal, so whatever vibrato I need goes there. AT could be sort of an "on-off" switch for me.

Good goin', Manenbu - Thanks for doing the screen shots and posts.

Curve 3 is the most sensitive, as shown in the manual's curve chart, which you've also posted.  When I try that, if I stand up and push so hard I think I'll break something, then I'll get an intermittent swoop of AT data, like in your picture, but I mean, really intermittently - just on a few scattered notes, not all of them.  But for me it's literally impossible to have any kind of reliable consistency with it.  It was less hassle just drawing it in the PRV as I did forever before this.

You've mapped AT to a pedal, good solution.  What I've done is have a special map with AT mapped to the modulation stick:

--This works for me because my primary instruments are Garritan, and most of those use CC1, or alternately, CC11 for volume.  I have a pedal for doing volume via CC11 with those instruments, leaving the mod stick handy for adding good, finely nuanced AT.  It works great, and I use it sometimes for non-Garritan instruments also.

Trying to use the spring-action mod stick for volume control with Garritan instruments doesn't work exactly for the reason that it's a spring-loaded thing.  My ancient keyboard before Apro, a $50 used generic controller beat the pants off the Apro with its mod wheel because it was free wheeling, no center detent, no spring action.  And it could be instantly programmed for any CC controller needed - a much more straightforward proposition than having to make all these various maps for the Apro.  BUT - it only had the one assignable control, the wheel.

AT shouldn't be an off/off switch, because there's a big difference between suddenly having full vibrato, and having it go in and out in degrees.  The extra spice in Garritan instruments is then to also control the speed of the vibrato, via CC17 which I have mapped to an Apro knob in my special Garritan control map.  Having various levels of AT and, if available, degrees of speed - that's what makes samples of real-world instruments come to life.

But, back to the point - AT doesn't work right in the Apro with the default connection to key pressure.  It's spotty at best.  Happily though, AT doesn't have to be only on the keys.  To me there's no problem making another sweep through a MIDI track to add AT data, or any other data, via controls on the Apro or by just digging in and drawing them in the PRV view.

Sadicus, you asked what "Sonar patch" could be used as a test - We've already proven that AT in the Apro doesn't work right, it wouldn't really be a good use of time to discover the same thing all over again.  But it shouldn't matter what patch you use anyway.  AT is commonly used in a lot of synths and their patches - In theory it should work with anything you want.

Randy B.

I've messed with this for a while and I'm not sure it's mechanics. If I use AT I hear no changes in sound but the CC data is clearly being recorded. The CC data just doesn't seem to interact with the patches I'm triggering. Very strange. I have a very old JX8P and AT works great. Go figure.

Hey all,
 
I came across this thread researching trying to sort the aftertouch on my Edirol PCR keyboards (predecessor to the A-Pro series) - I'd previously stuck layers of insulation tape over the aftertouch strip, which had some effect, but it's worn down over time.
 
Thank you for all the advice here, I'd have been stuck without it - dfahrner's info gave me enough (along with researching IC 358 chips) to attempt the resistor mod, and proved successful (on all 4 PCR's I have). 
 
On the Edirol, the chip is labelled IC15 as opposed to IC8, but is located near the trim-pot as per the A-Pro series.
I ensured the trim-pot was turned fully clockwise, which makes it most sensitive.
 
My soldering isn't the best (which gave me some difficulty on the first one I modded), so soldered wires to the necessary pins - green on Pin 4 (earth), red on Pin 6 (- Aftertouch Input), yellow on Pin 7 (Output). For information, the chip also handles pitchbend (Pin 8 handles power for the chip - mess with this and it stops working...)
 
In terms of resistors, I used a 220k between Pin 6 and Pin 4 (red to green), and 100k between Pin 6 and Pin 7 (red to yellow) - I found this gave more sensitivity, and there is always the option to reduce sensitivity using the trimpot or software/synth you use. Once I confirmed it worked, I taped it up with insulation tape, to the bottom of the casing.
 

 
Obviously, modding is at your own risk, but hope this helps people :)
 
Cheers,
 
Rob