Hello -
Just purchased Analog Factory Experience (AFE) 2.5 and installed it on my Vista PC. I am using it in conjunction with NI Maschine, Ableton Live 7 and a bunch of other outboard hardware MIDI devices. Overall it works great and I am very pleased with the product. Some observations and questions.
1. OBSERVATION: Authorization of the AFE software went with no problem. I have a physical Syncrosoft dongle, so perhaps that spared me some of the problems others are experiencing. However, the Syncrosoft site has some confusing language which may be throwing some users off.
2. OBSERVATION: Initially, my computer could not find the physical 32-key keyboard over USB. My keyboard was connected directly to a USB port on the PC itself by a very long USB cable. However, when I connected the keyboard to an integrated USB hub in my monitor via a much shorter cable, the keyboard was recognized right away. So if you're having problems with your computer recognizing your AFE keyboard, you may want to trying changing cables/hubs/ports. My (very uneducated) guess is that it may have something to do with USB's touchy power supply issues. Perhaps another fix would be to try using an AC adapter with the keyboard.
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4. REQUEST: It would be REALLY REALLY nice if there were some way of changing the MIDI channel of the AFE physical keyboard using the buttons on the keyboard itself, e.g., some kind of shift-key sequence on the keyboard's faceplate. Just as it's really nice to have Octave up and down keys on the keyboard itself, it would be great to have MIDI channel up and down. Right now, the only way to do this is using the MIDI Control Center app or sysex messages, which is a bunch of extra steps. Also, I notice that the MIDI Control Center tends to crash upon launch if the AFE keyboard is being used in another application, e.g., Maschine or Ableton Live. To use the MIDI Control Center application, I must shut down all other audio programs. That's very inconvenient.
5. REQUEST: Likewise, it would be nice to have some way of setting velocity and aftertouch curves other than sysex messages. Since these tend to be changed far less than MIDI channel, it would be fine if they were set within the MIDI Control Center. How many velocity index curves are there, and what do they correspond to?
Thank you
Lionel Cassin
