Hey guys, lately I’ve been trying to learn some live Tom drum patterns on my Maschine MK3 and the problem is it registers velocity at very high/max too easily. The “sensitivity” setting doesn’t seem to do the trick as it sounds more like a gate setting than actual sensitivity setting. Nor does any other curve setting.
Is there any device on the market that lets you setup the pads so you have to hammer really hard to get the velocity at full 127?
Thanks in advance
Have you tried combining both a hardware and software curve?
So inside NI Controller editor you select a hollow curve that makes it harder to get to louder velocities and then inside your drum software on the toms, you set another one of those curves.
Hey Robert, really appreciate your reply.
I’m using Maschine software and if I understood you correctly then yes - I’ve tried setting the velocity curve to hard 1-3 in Maschine settings while doing the same in the drum vst settings.
SInce I imagine both of these curves are “smooth” I can’t really “draw” the velocity curve to look like the one you’ve shown. As in have this very sudden sharp skip and go beyond quiet only when hit 127. I’m still getting “strong hits” too easily. It’s also a fairly drastic workaround and it makes the drumming not feel right.
Like I said - my main problem is the global sensitivity which makes me max out the velocity too easily, the curves themselves seem to feel the best when set to linear. Basically the pads are too sensitive for my natural style which is to hit hard, feel some bounce etc. It feels really really unnatural for me to try and go that soft especially when playing fast. And I’m not a drummer, I only play with my fingers.
Are certain akai/some other pads noticably less sensitive?
Thanks for your time
You might want to check out the Nektar Aura. You have a lot of control over the sensitvity and range of the pads.
Checl out my video here >> For your convenience I skipped to the “Velocity curvess and range” part.
Thanks for that. It’s funny because we’re clearly looking for exact opposite in terms of the pad sensitivity. I’m quite literally looking for the least responsive pads out there 
The video doesn’t explore the other side of the spectrum but that’s fine. The device is still a bit too expensive for a one-purpose Maschine extension. I’ll keep looking. Maybe some old AKAI on ebay.
I really do appreciate your help. Thanks a lot for your time Rob
Well, honestly if a controller had pads with great pad sensitivity in terms of treshold (so trigger when hit super softly) and after that a huge dynamic range where you’d have to hit pretty damn hard to get the loudest notes out, I would like that. It’s not the only thing though. For example the stupid thing about the Aura is the flickering of the pads making it impossible to film my hands and do lessons with it.
Unusable for me, but otherwise I might have switched to that thing for a while purely because of the better dynamic range options.
A plus for the Aura is that it will do MIDI without a computer. If I’m not mistaken I think that is unique in the price range. I’ve tried this with an old Roland 1080 I have and it works very well. I haven’t tried setting the sensitivity for really hard hits but it is very adjustable in general. I think it might be possible but I think you wouldn’t get much dynamic range. I may have some time next week to experiment.