First Impressions - Erae II

works fine for me…

Square Hapax → port D TRS → Erae 2 midi TRS in.

the BPM display does not update (at least reliably).
but you can clearly see the loop speed increasing, also the metronome reflects tempo etc.

it supports clock and start/stop (not sure about continue, or if thats treated as start?)

I also, for completeness, tested usb-device (from Ableton Live) and that worked as well.

btw: specific questions would be better in separate topics.

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Thanks so much for the reply and confirming its not firmware related.
I’ll investigate further and report back if I learn anything.

(noted; will create a separate topic next time)

edit: Up and running on the clocked looper! Confirming the MIDI-In requires Type A TRS.

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yeah, just tested with latest 1.0.3 firmware (just in case it had change) but still good.

I did notice 2 interesting things:

a) metronome
does not appear to be pulsing correctly, at least bar start.
(its wrong on both int and ext clock)

b) press stop button will update the bpm
as above, the bpm display does not update ‘live’, but if you press stop it appears to update the display… useful for testing perhaps.

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I appreciate that new firmware seems to have added a ‘project saved successfully’ message when saving a project. It was a bit of a press-and-trust/black box scenario with the previous version.

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I just got mine and am struck by how solid it is. Seems like a big step from the original. However, I’m not able to send v/oct to my rack, or I don’t know how to set it up properly… Control voltages seem to work fine. I’m not sure I understand how CV output is implemented. I read about it in the manual but it was confusing to me.

Also, pushing seems to work intermittently and I had to close and open EraeLab to get it to work a few times.

Another issues is the surface has a ridge in it and I can feel it when I play. I can probably live with it but it’s also kind of annoying too. Around the ridge there’s some lumpiness like the fabric balled up around that area. About 2-3 square inches is affected.

I’m sure things will get ironed out over time so I have high hopes.

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Hi there! So, how do you feel the E2 compares to the previous version? Is the responsiveness/sensitivity and pressure consistency across the surface any better? How satisfied are you?

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I like it a lot better. I like the feel of the surface better and also the z depth squish. Not sure about consistency across the surface and I have some irregularities in the cloth surface of mine. I’m hoping the better tactile experience will also translate into a feeling of more precision. Except for the previously mentioned issue, I already feel like I will be satisfied with it in time. EraeLab was a little buggy for me so hard to know if it’s user error or bugs sometimes.

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After playing with it last night for an hour or so, some black oily substance oozed up from within and stained the top surface of the fabric. I know it came from the controller because I was super careful about washing my hands and keeping things clean. Has anyone else had this happen?

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Yikes, sounds like something out of a horror movie!

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Ha, It felt like that!

I’m curious what Embodme will say about it. Doesn’t seem to affect the playing except it’s slightly softer where the sludge is.

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Do you have a photo of this stain?

I removed this image due to not being relevant any more. It was totally my fault. The smudge was there cause there some grease in the ball bearings in the backets for a shelf I installed to on my Erae. I feel terrible to have spread misinformation on this!

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I’m frequently getting stuck notes. Is anyone else having a similar issue?

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Not yet.

If you export a layout you’re experiencing this on, maybe some of us can help troubleshoot.it?

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If you load the factory default project and switch between pages 3 and 4, just switching will play a note. Then, if you use any of these layouts. I’ve had a note hang while I’m playing as well, but it’s not at the moment. if you got to layout 1 and switch on MPE, it plays a note. I’d be curious if this is the case with you as well.

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Just got mine and having serious mixed feelings. Everything is fine so far except for the one thing I was hoping they’d improve from the first version, which is the evenness of the pressure response. Definitely not seeing anywhere near the ±5% precision that was promised, more like ±30%, just a slight improvement over the original. I’m wondering if there’s any chance this might improve down the road, or if it’s just inherent to the hardware.

Here’s what I got from running my finger from one side to the other. The left side is Erae, the middle is Erae II, and the right is the Haken Continuum. Maybe it’s not an entirely fair comparison since the Haken costs ~10x more, but it would be nice if it was in the ballpark at least. Still thinking this will be useful for X/Y pads and the like, as that aspect seems pretty precise, just not so much as an expressive MPE controller.

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Yes, I have the same kind of result and feeling: it is for me far better than v1, it is not difficult !, but it is also still rather far from Sensel Morph. Nevertheless, with a good smoothing it is now acceptable.
There is also the fact that there is no values emitted below 10/11 which makes fades from/to silence impossible. I supose that they have cut it from Erae1 to avoid false triggers, but I hope that they will reintroduce it later…

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What do you do use for smoothing? Is there a plug-in that can do that for MPE?

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I could build something in max for live, if you’re using Ableton (Suite).

Not sure if I could build something equivalent in Plugdata, to sit between the controller and your DAW. (Gut instinct, I’m missing a key object and my work won’t be reliable without that.)

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I’m not, but appreciate it.

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