New Pad Performance Enhancement tricks, free and easy

what's up everybody. nym again with a couple more pad suggestions, this time relating to the Akai-released Pad FIX

so you've got your new pads installed and you're finally using FSR technology like i've been blabbing about since 2005. good for you!

however, you can do more to make your pads feel even better. remember, akai designed this FIX after the fact because we made enough noise. again, good for you!!

there are still a couple of problems with the akai design.

1 - looseness. you can jostle the pads in the machine by grabbing one corner pad and moving it. you can actually pull a corner pad so the lip comes up out of the machine. this is trouble for durability as you may accidentally rip the pad in transport if you're on the go a lot!! danger.

2 - moving parts!! put your finger on your pad without triggering it. now, push down slowly, paying attention to what you feel. NOTE: for about a millimeter, you're pushing rubber down WITHOUT making any contact with the FSR sensor. this means that every time you hit a pad, you're moving the rubber 1 mm before actually triggering a note. this makes playing the pads a little more clumsy than it needs to be (still better than before.)

so here are 2 very easy, free solutions (well, you may have to buy the parts but you can do it for under 5 bucks or less if you have materials around the house.

FIRST - how to deal with the looseness. remember when you put the pads in, how you attached the fsr strip to the metal frame? remember how you screwed the frame into the mpc? take off the frame and fix SMALL WASHERS to the underside of the frame where the screws are. these are SPACERS and will raise the entire frame up a small amount (i say about 1-2 mm, if you go to far you won't be able to re-attach your mpc faceplate.

what does this do? the metal faceplate will now act as a clip, holding the mpc pads down against the FSR sheet. this will take care of the looseness problem and isolate the pads vibration - ie you won't be able to pick up a corner pad or jostle multiple pads when touching one anymore.

SECOND - how to deal with the moving parts. At wallmart, there's this stuff called carpet tape. it's sticky and doesn't loose adhesive. cut a sheet of it and stick it over some small flexible material (such as vinyl or something else). make sure that the entire sheet's thickness is NOT greater than 1 mm (or even smaller. you may have to do some trial and error.

cut squares to fit on the underside of the mpc1000 pads, over the oval. make sure the squares aren't too large or they'll fold awkwardly and you won't like it. rememeber what you're doing: compensating for that extra space.

if you put too much, you'll know. playing the pads will trigger other pads. pushing down on the faceplate itself will trigger nearby pads. you'll get stuck notes and strangeness. all this tells you is that you went too thick - try again with a thinner material.

when this is said and done, you should only have to lightly brush your mpc pads to get a very low response. likewise, you won't have to cream the pads to get a full 127 response.

i plan to do this asap and report back

good one nym! seems like great ideas!

for point 2, what kind size do make the squares ?

you know, squares was just the default idea but on second thought you could probably make them ovals to fit the shape of the actual bend.

a little creative cutting may be needed to get them to form fit over top the oval.

i'll take pictures and get em up this weekend hopefully

Great tips nym! Nice post.

holy shite @ washers!
why didnt i think of that?

heh because luckily for your brain, you didn't spend years mulling over how to cope with fked up pads

though i have noticed that my skills of judging spacial shit have gotten a lot better

and now i like to invent things

update - i discovered an even better way of doing this. i also took some measurements. the space that exists in between the NEW PADS and the sensors = roughly 1.5 mm. that's a very small space but it makes a difference in playback

remember, every time you hit your pads you're having to compensate for the force required to push your pads 1.5 mm down before hitting the sensor. this is a bad thing to have to do.

you need to eliminate the vast majority of that space. i had previously recommended attaching something to the underside of the pad itself. what i recommend now is using the same double sided carpet tape (it's a gentle adhesive, coupled with some alcohol it would leave no trace if you were to remove all this stuff) to attach a piece of card stock (about .75 mm thick, or 1/32 inch) to the actual black square that is the FSR sensor, thus raising it up closer to the pad.

understand? reverse of what i said before - attach the rectangle to the surface of the sensor, not the pad.

this, coupled with the tape, eliminates roughly 90% of that space. you need to keep a TINY amount of space, but the closer you get, the better. the result will be increased detection of extremely low level hits and a better velocity curve in general because your machine has a more accurate reflection of the pressure you're giving.

since i don't have that tape here at work, i'm gonna do it at 7 when i get home.

Nym, What material is the sensor surface made out of?...

I would be wary of using carpet tape on anything that is remotely pliable and thin. That stuff sticks extremely well to most anything, so if you did want to remove it, especially after friction, use compaction, and general hardening of the adhesive over time, you may have a beooch of a time getting it back off.

Also, would the card-stock be durable enough?

And, would the card-stock act as a buffer, or dampener in any way.


~Grub

the sensors are a thin, clear plastic sandwich, about 1mm thick itself.

it goes

plastic
pressure transducing material
conductive coil
plastic
adhesive
metal frame

peeling up the card stock shouldn't be an issue as the sensor strip is adhered strongly to the metal frame, which would negate the plastic's thin pliability. however, of course, the goal here is not to have to take it off.

as far as durability, i'm using the cardboard from a record sleeve (a foghat record, actually). it will be durable enough as there it touches nothing but the rubber of the pad. the cardboard doesn't seem to compress.

an appreciably better solution than carpet tape and card stock would be a vinyl adhesive material just under 1.5 mm thick, but i'm probably gonna use the carpet tape and card stock since it's on hand.

finally, whatever your choice of material, it will only act as a buffer/dampener IF it is flexible within a 1.5 mm range. remember, that's not a lot of space. even 1.5mm thick rubber doesn't compress much in those small dimensions. so that's not a concern.

scratch this post, i spoke too soon

no good?

nah i was experimenting with some 1 sided adhesive felt pads i got for 83 cents at wallmart and they worked great, but had some issue with double triggering because it was about .2-f.4 mm too thick

if they were just a LITTLE thinner they'd be ideal...

Antonym wrote:scratch this post, i spoke too soon

the whole post? or did you just edit your reply?

haha just the reply, which pertained to the felt inserts.

Antonym wrote:nah i was experimenting with some 1 sided adhesive felt pads i got for 83 cents at wallmart and they worked great, but had some issue with double triggering because it was about .2-f.4 mm too thick

if they were just a LITTLE thinner they'd be ideal...

just installed mine......i actually like the space between the new pads and the sensors...