Aura: Hyper-Sensitive Pad Optimization

Aura contains a lot of smart technology and the pairing with Nektarines makes it a complete instrument. But are the pads on Aura good? Are they sensitive to the touch for finger drumming, rolls or just plain thrashing out that beat? The answer is yes but you will benefit from optimizing your pad settings to get the ultimate, well-balanced pad controller around.

Here we’ll go through the most important considerations when making changes to the default Aura pad settings. It should be possible to get Aura’s pads to respond to your playing style exactly right.

 

Balance Aura Pads with Pad Sensitivity

When you play Aura, you may notice that triggering can vary from pad to pad. In other words, one pad may trigger more easily than another or feel more sensitive. The easiest way to ensure all pads on a pad controller trigger the same, is by setting a trigger threshold for all pads, that equal the pad that’s hardest to trigger. Many pad controllers are designed that way.

Aura does not limit performance but instead allow users to set pad sensitivity indedently, per pad.  This means that by changing a setting, you can improve the performance of any Aura pad and get a nice even, optimized performance that’s similar on all pads. Adjusting the pads does require a little bit of time, but it’s worth it.

Here are the steps needed to complete the process:

• On Aura select Internal/MIDI Assign/Pad Config.
• Play the pads until you find the pad that is most sensitive. We’ll call it the target pad.
• Play another pad and increase the ‘Pad Sensitivity’ value until the trigger performance match the sensitivity performance of the target pad. It’s not uncommon that the Pad Sensitivity needs to be set to 1000 or above, if the pad is noticably harder to trigger than the target pad. But don’t go too far. If the Pad Sensitivity is set too high, the pad can self trigger.
• Repeat the process for each of the other pads until they are all balanced and equaly sensitive.

As mentioned in step 3, it’s important not to set the Pad Sensitivity too high for any given pad. We recommend you stop increasing the value when the pads trigger performance is close but not above the target pad. The goal is to improve the balance of the pads but also avoid pad self triggering which can cause some odd behavior.

 

Getting the Velocity Response Right

Another important part of the pads performance is the MIDI velocity response.

Pad Velocity Curve settings can be found in Aura’s ‘Internal/Global Menu’.

The default Pad Curve option is ‘Curve’. The Bias parameter is set to 100% which actually creates a linear response. Increasing or decreasing the Bias percentage creates exponential or logarithmic curves.

A good question to ask before tweaking the Bias parameter, would be ‘What do I like about the default curve and what needs to change to make the velocity response work better for me?’.

If you’d like the pads to reach the higher velocity values with a little less effort, change the Bias parameter to 75%. The slight logarithmic curve raises the velocity levels so everything sounds a bit louder but still retains the ability to play soft with low velocity values. To make the rise even more extreme, change the Bias parameter to an even lower % value until reaching 3% which emphasises the high velocity values, roughly from 115 to 127.

Setting the Bias value value above 100% does the opporsite. With a value of 125% the curve is now slightly exponential which means a little more force is needed to reach the higher velocity values. Increase the value will make the curve increasingly steep and give you more control of lower velocity values in the process.

There is also an option to reduce or increase the pads dynamic velocity range. The ‘Max Pressure’ values is set to 6000 by default which provides a dynamic range that should work for most players. If you’d like a little more dynamic range, increase the value until you are satisfied. This affects the curve behavior as it’s stretched to a wider range. Set the value below 6000 if you prefer a narrow dynamic range.

After you have played Aura for a while, you may go back to revist the velocity curve settings armed with a more nuanced experience. It’s also possible the default settings are all you ever need.