The comments on your preset were made after about 10 seconds of playing it, then I went back to the default and…please, don’t stop…! What you’ve done is very neat. I was finding the sustain a bit much when tapping out rapid sequences, but actually I think you’re very close to something I’d prefer to the built-in sound. Could you rein in the sustain a bit? How hard is it to tweak that? 
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Long Version
So, now we’re going to get to the tricky part. I absolutely can, and it’s one of the settings I want to have on buttons. But there’s a knack to playing quickly without sustain that I can do, but I’m not sure I can describe. For me I can play legato style quickly. I think what’s going on is when I’m going from one note to the next I’m not quite taking my finger off the previous button.
To give an insight on how it works, I have an attack/decay/sustain/release model where:
- When you press down, it starts measuring both the maximum positive and negative velocity you press it at. It decides the attack by summing the the absolute value of both of those. So, press down and pull up fast = high attack, press down fast and hold, is half that. It also means you can get a high attack pressing fast, but not deep, so just lightly tapping the buttons.
- If you pull your finger off (pressure goes to 0) before it reaches the peak of it’s attack and the bottom of it’s decay (where your finger pressure is at that time) then it thinks you want a pluck, and will do the extended sustain. The sustain starts at wherever it was, then decreases at roughly a exponential rate… I tweaked it to what I thought sounded better.
My nephew, who’s a better musician than I am, took a bit to figure out the trick of playing quick without plucking. It’s part of why I said this isn’t more friendly for the first hour of play, but I think is more powerful for the fifth hour of play.
I’m still working on getting plucking 100% consistent, for example for fun I was teaching myself Astronomia (coffin dance) plucking style, and there’s a point where you’re doing 12 8th notes in a row, I can’t hit that perfectly every time. That might mean I need to get good, it might mean that I still have an engineering problem to solve. Contrariwise, I can play “The Musical Priest” at speed without any accidental plucks.
Short Version
Sure, it’s just a variable, I could make a custom one in about 5 minutes.
-Frank
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Thanks for that. I had another quick go at rapid playing and couldn’t quite get it. Then I switched to mono mode for a jump-start and now already prefer your preset, so I’m going to stick with that and work on it. For me, the usual preset has a “rattly” quality on headphones that I find it hard to love. I guess your nephew is playing in poly mode? That’s Grade V stuff. 
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This thing continues to grow on me, and with some replacement earbuds I’m getting used to the built-in audio too. This layout really is excellent; very intuitive and quick to learn.
My bamboo power pack is a nice fit, though I’m starting to daydream about building one with a built-in Ksoloti that I could put underneath…
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Hi Ben,
I would definitely be interested in a rig like that, particularly with a built in speaker/mini-jack setup. While the Striso has coped with my questionably efficient code, it’d be nice to have something that’d take more abuse. My current rig is just using a combo powerbrick/speaker I picked up from NewEgg. Finding a powerbrick/speaker with a miniplug is non-trivial, but this one is pretty good. The only problem I’ve found with it is if the speaker doesn’t get attention after some time it will shut off, so you can’t use it for just earphone play for long.
-Frank
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