Minilab mk2 Jumpy Pitch Bend Strip

[Sifer]

Hi (and sorry in advance for my English)!
I noticed that the pitch bend strip seems to be slightly jumpy in the middle, that is the starting point (both upward and downward).
It doesn't allow you, for example, to make a slight progressive increase in bending.
I also came back in the store to check if it was just mine. We tried 3 of them and they all had the same problem. And it happened with every Vst I tried.
I have the 1.0.7.67 firmware version.
Did anybody notice it too? Is there already a possible solution?

[Germain.arturia]

Hi Sifer, no problem for your english , fully understandable.

I reproduced your issue, and warned my dev colleague about that. In the meantime i heard you already contacted support team.
Sorry you're encountering this problem, we'll work hard to fix it and keep you aware.

Thanks to have noticed this one,

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.

Best,

[Sifer]

Yes, I contacted the support team
and I was sincerely surprised by Arturia's reactivity!

This is the answer I'm posting in all user's interest:
"We've investigated thoroughly your problem, and we've registered this issue as a user complaint.
As i've said when starting from the middle it has no impact, but as you sais and as i've missed before, if you start below the middle and go through the deadzone the deadzone seems to be detected and it stops the modulation as long as you've gone through it.
This seems to be a firmware related issue, so we're transfering this issue to the dev team in order for them to do the needed modifications to the firmware as soon as possible."

Hoping to enjoy soon the fix
Thanks in advance for your work!

[Cap Steven]

Hi,

@Germain.arturia: Could you help us what is the status of this fix?


Thank you

[Sifer]

At the moment, I must say I'm pretty worried.
I don't know how often they release their updates, but it's already a month, and the pitch bend, in this way, is pretty annoying and useless, for me.
Especially, I'm wondering whether this really is a firmware issue, as they said.
I mean, what if not? What if it's about the hardware? 

[Sifer]

10 days and no answer from Arturia.
What's happening?

[Sifer]

Since nobody's answering here, I wrote again a private message.
This was the unbelievable answer:

"Hello.
To clarify things.
This is not a issue but how things have been specified.
We have submitted a feature request to change the Minilab MkII pitchwheel behaviour.
So your message has been taken in account.
But an update follows an agenda depending of the ressources available and of the number of customer complaining.
Best Regards.
Edouard"

So, for Arturia, a pitch bend that doesn't allow me to start from zero and GRADUALLY increase or decrease WITHOUT jumps is "how things have been specified".

[parkway76]

I just opened up my new MKii minilab and this issue was the first thing I noticed. It never bends smoothly from the middle. The fact that it was designed this way on purpose seems odd to me. Please change it so the pitch bend is smooooth. If I want to jump between notes, I'll use the keyboard. While your at it, how about a user remote script for the software that you packaged with the controller?

[undrgrndwhr]

Heey, so is there a fix for this yet? I just bought this thing like a week ago (Sep 2018) and it has this issue. 

[chakko]

I have the same issue here. I just sent a support request to Arturia support. I'd appeal to you to do the same, if you have this issue as well. The more likely it will be then that Arturia looks into this issue. Cheers.

Hmmm... thinking about it a bit more, i could imagine that the pitch bend has two touchstrips, and the center is simply a zone where none of the 2 touchstrips react. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that there's no MIDI messages sent, when you touch in the center of the pitch bend. So, i figure this is rather hardware related, and can't be "fixed".

[chakko]

So, after corresponding with Arturia support, i have it confirmed now that the dead zone in the center of the pitch bend is indeed by design, and it's like that on every unit. Of course, not optimal, as i wished i could do real pitch bends with it, but, that's how it is. Guess you can't complain for a controller in that price region. Keys are great though, as is the mod wheel.