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Author Topic: 1 year of keystep pro  (Read 2035 times)

collincrowe

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1 year of keystep pro
« on: March 31, 2021, 05:52:23 am »
1 year of keystep pro
Please post what you ❤️ about it

dct

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Re: 1 year of keystep pro
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2021, 12:11:55 pm »
a) After a month of usage I get into the mood to understand (and use) the great live performance on-the-fly changes of running tracks
b) The four CV voices out: This is just great!

But still learning
Keys: CX-3 II, Grandmother, Keystep Pro, Zen Delay

erstlaub

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Re: 1 year of keystep pro
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2021, 01:18:01 pm »
TLDR: Had one since launch and genuinely couldn't be happier with it.

The KSP is the main hub across all my gear. I'm running a midi out to my Hermod (so use track 1 as the main input to that and subsequently my massive eurorack setup), the clock out is plugged into Pam's New Workout and I use the KSP's other midi out over to my SH01a, JU06a, JP08, TB03 and Elektron Digitakt, Samples and Cycles. If I'm using it, I also send the reset out from KSP to MI Grid to restart that in sync.

When I hit transport on the KSP, everything else starts and stops (and resets) in solid time.

For what it cost, I honestly love it, it does everything I need it to do (and a bit more), has a decent amount of keys, I don't dislike the size/spacing of the keys (I'm not an expressive keys player but it totally does for my style/ability).

Sure, sometimes I'll run into the very occasional weird note that's in slightly the wrong place or forget to save but there's not that much in there for me to complain about.

The other night I needed to recalibrate an osc and checked the cv outs with a meter and got perfect, solid voltages that I'd expect to read at those intervals.

A few of the things I've seen criticism about seem to have pretty easy solutions to me - 'you can't record the arps': no but you can just program a sequence witht he notes you want in the order/length you want? - 'No global transpose' - just copy your pattern to a new pattern, transpose it and switch between patterns globally etc. 'Some scales include the wrong notes' - just don't play the notes you don't want right?

Compared to something like Soundmachines ((arches)) which I was stupid enough to kickstart to the value of something like €770 which now sits as a poor build quality, literally half finished  and abandoned 'product' that lives in a box getting dusty under a desk in my studio, the KSP is a total delight. Soundmachines actually gave up on any updates and abandoned their own hosted forums for a year and then just flat out deleted them which I suppose is one way to deal with a less than happy userbase. Class act (they changed their name and have spent the last year hyping up an electronic recorder instrument on kickstarter which I have every faith will also be a piece of utter tepid half supported garbage to the disappointment of their many, fooled backers).


PS: I don't use USB/computer stuff alongside my physical stuff so perhaps some of the gripes are to do with that complexity but it's always going to exist. FWIW, the same thing happened with the BSP where people that were trying to do EVERYTHING with it were hitting the limitations so I can't speak for that experience of the KSP.

PPS: Totally not affiliated or sponsored by Arturia in any way, just a totally regular customer.

PPPS: If Arturia want to start sending me stuff for free, I'll be more than happy to become a shill kthnx.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2021, 01:25:56 pm by erstlaub »

MajorFubar

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Re: 1 year of keystep pro
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2021, 03:46:22 pm »
Careful, you'll have some of the complainers accusing you of being an Arturia insider like they did with me.
But I'm glad you are happy with it.
It's inevitable that forums are disproportionately populated by users who have complaints or difficulties because that's primarily why people join the forums in the first place.
So it's good to get a bit of balance.
2022 Apple Studio Max 32/32/2TB Monterey • V Collection 9 • Analog Lab 4 + 5 • KeyLab 88 • KeyStep

synthcreep

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Re: 1 year of keystep pro
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2021, 06:34:24 pm »
FWIW, the same thing happened with the BSP where people that were trying to do EVERYTHING with it were hitting the limitations so I can't speak for that experience of the KSP.

I picked up the BSP after version 2.0 so was unaware that it also had been released unfinished and bug ridden too (shame on you Arturia).  The version I bought worked as advertised like the other hardware sequencers I have owned and I expected the same from the KSP.  The KSP currently does not, plain and simple.  For example the arpeggiator is not usable for riffing due to it dropping notes (a real bummer).  Step record routinely stops working (basically every single session) so I stopped attempting to ever use it.  Restoring projects corrupts scene and pattern state.  I have previously posted video proof of all of these issues.

What I do love about the KSP is the ease with which you can extend or shrink patterns while working on songs and without stopping the transport.  This makes it really easy and fun to create riffs and motifs since you can try things without losing the flow while jamming.  I constantly go from an initial 1 bar drum pattern to a 4 bar version with accents this way.  Same goes for melodic riffs.  In general the KSP is very good about not requiring stopping of the transport to make creative changes to patterns and tracks and that makes it fun.

Despite the significant issues with the current KSP firmware and the MCC, I still use the KSP regularly to make music  and am currently in the process of recording 12 songs sequenced on the KSP. 

erstlaub

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Re: 1 year of keystep pro
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2021, 02:24:09 am »
Tell you what, if you want to experience a properly shaky launch, send me €770 and I'll post you the Soundmachines ((arches)), it'll have you begging for the KSP and it's launch firmware in no time  ;D

Similar to the BSP (and a lot of eurorack stuff), there are so many possible use cases and setup variables that it must be incredibly difficult to anticipate bugs and even to find a diverse enough userbase to discover them in early (and even post launch) testing.

I think the role of this forum is also an important distinction to make in that it's not really the place to report bugs and is not really manned by the devs on a personal basis (in the way that say the Mutable Forums are entirely a one/many on one platform directly with Emilie), that would be an actual support ticket. It'd be interesting to see how many posts here are actually followed through and raised as support issues with Arturia. I've only ever had one dealing with them and that was a janky calibration on the pitchwheel of a Microbrute which went quite quickly and smoothly as I remember (oh yeah, and some moaning about how the clock input worked that I never actually bothered to turn into a support ticket).

 

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