I didn’t see a it mentioned anywhere on here but Nektar put out a pretty nice looking drum pad controller. The screen looks nice.
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I just got this and have to say that the sequencer on this is very underrated. Here’s my take on it.
The sequencer is standalone (on a device that is also class compliant).
Each of the 16 pads is a track, or as Nektar calls it a “pattern.” Anyways, so you can have your kick on Pad 1, Snare on Pad 2, and so on for 16 pads. Nothing crazy so far. So you get 16 different tracks, or “patterns.”
Each of those tracks is 16 steps. But they’re really 64 steps each because each track has 4 “parts” each. A part contains 16 steps and any adjustments you want to make to a few internal parameters like play rate, number of steps, velocity, etc.
So, if you have a kick drum track on Pad 1, for example, you can have the first 16 steps play at 1/16 rate. That would be Part 1. Then for Part 2, you can have it play the kick drum at 1/32 rate for example for a length of 9 steps. Then Part 3 you can have the kick drum at 1/8 rate for 5 steps. And Part 4 at 1/64 rate for 11 steps.
You can have Part 1 play without the other three or you can activate the other parts to go through all four parts, for example, giving you a longer sequence up to 64 steps.
And that’s just for one track. You have 16 tracks. Imagine the insanity that can happen.
Oh and you can plock steps for a few of the internal parameters like play rate, velocity, etc. So things can get even more crazy.
I also like that is has an x0x0 style sequencer in addition to the 16 pads. So, like the SP-16. But also has a screen that shows all four parts, so you can see all 64 steps at once on a track, er, pattern, for quick reference to what is going on sequencer-wise.
Some downsides: can’t plock CCs, Nektarine software sucks imo but I don’t use it, no conditional trigs, and no chaining past the 64 steps.
For a standalone, class compliant sequencer, this is a crazy mofo when it comes rhtymic possibilities - it also have various ways to play sequences like reverse and ping pong. Oh and the pads are the most sensitive I’ve used (once you adjust them). More sensitive than Maschine MK3, which was the reigning champ for me for sensitivity. I have both units.
I think a competitor would be the Toraiz Squid. The Squid’s advantages are probably obvious. The advantanges of the Aura would be, imo, the pads (great for finger drummers), the size, the cost (almost half the cost of the Squid), the x0x0 steps, the rhythmic craziness (maybe the Squid can do the same but not sure), better screen, and the eight encoders (for controlling devices on say Ableton which usually come in eights).
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Sounds awesome. I’m a big fan of Nektar’s controllers. I have a 49 key in my studio. If I was in the market for a drum controller I would definitely get this.
While it appears to have some standalone functionality, it appears to be optimized for ITB usage
It has a standalone sequencer and midi out… I think it’s designed to be the brain of a hybrid studio.
Somebody brought this up on another forum, but the reaction so far there has been “most functionality appears to be eliminated when used OTB”.
This is the manual btw, since I don’t think it’s linked on the product page:
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i’m not very convinced by the demo.
the ‘repeat’ engine is just repeats on a pad… i dont know why theyre calling it ‘an engine’ when the feature is so standard.
it seems confused that theres an ‘onboard’ sequencer but then it is recorded to ableton ?
and then i wonder how competitive it is with maschine etc.
is it standalone, is it an ableton controller …?
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Not that my finger is on the pulse or anything but this is the first time I’ve seen or heard of this thing. Was its launch and rollout foiled by covid?
The Nick Batt video about this came up on my YouTube last night. What can I say - not even the Nektar demo guy seemed overly enthusiastic and there was nothing whatsoever in that video that piqued my interest. Did I miss anything this has over Maschine, Push 2, MPC, you name it? My guess - this will be very niche at best, dead on arrival more likely.
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Price.
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NikkiYou can pick up an aura dead cheap on eBay occasionally, I’ve seen them go for sub 100gbp, the rebrand models are selling for about 280, I like the look of it to be fair, the Ableton integration looks pretty tight, I wish they’d do a super deep dive video tutorial for it so I could see wether or not you can do similar stuff to machine with synths hosted on a pad in a drum group so that the entire thing is contained neatly rather than load of instances on separate tracks…
The pads on the Aruba are great for finger drumming. They are responsive and the sensitivity can be adjusted per pad. Have not used a Maschine or a recent Akai for comparison, but have no real complaints about the playability of the pads.
The standalone sequencer is also pretty handy for basic step sequencing. The device is class compliant so it works with just about anything which is also nice.
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