hughster56

Haven't tried that yet, still on my to-do list

Hmmm... Gianni is claiming he can't reproduce what I am seeing - but I don't know what firmware revision he has installed. However, this is not a deal-breaker, though I have to confess I would like working pitch wheel, etc. but there are ways round this for external (FX-Autoset OFF, both sticks ON) gives Stick 2-Y PB, Stick 2-X Mod); and internal (FX-Autoset OFF, Stick 1=ON, Stick 2=SOUND) gives the same X-Y mapping for Stick 2 - Stick 1 is disabled. The mislabelled ports are renameable in Studio One (the DAW I use) so that's not an issue. Otherwise, happy with the beast.

OK, I've found a couple of (quite major) bugs in my NC2X through experimentation and analysis of MIDI monitor logs. 1) The two ports (KEYBOARD and CONTROLLER) are mislabelled in the firmware. Now the MIDI implementation makes perfect sense where it didn't before. 2) Stick 1 works when you first turn on the instrument, but as soon as you wiggle Stick 2, it seems to hijack Stick 1's functions and disable it entirely. I can think of a couple of ways this might happen in programming, but obviously there's no way for me to fix it. I'm in contact with Gianni at SL, who seems like a really nice and helpful guy, and I am confident that I either got a pre-production firmware model (mine is 1.0.0) or that SL will upgrade the firmware to take account of these. PS despite not knowing about the bugs until today, I had a lot of fun yesterday with the beast. I am liking the actual keyboard more and more, and the sounds haven't started to grate on the ears yet.

It's good to have a control that doesn't spring back, as is typical of mod wheels. Absolutely, but it can be a pain at times, as the assignments to X and Y don't always make sense to me.

Just spent a few hours having fun with the thing. Internal sounds are perfectly usable - and the keyboard still feels good - you have to dig in quite hard to get the aftertouch. I really don't know if Soundlogic have got the sticks correctly set up here. I can live with the non-X return on stick 2 (if you were using it to control Leslie speed or something like that), provided it isn't assigned to anything that really affects the pitch. It seems that Stick 1, which I would expect to be pitch, isn't, in a lot of cases. All of this may just be me, but they're not easy controls to get on with right now. Also, the MIDI implementation seems odd to me. I'm going to work a little harder at it, and produce my own guide on how to use the controller and keyboard MIDI OUTs with a DAW. But so far, so good. Worth the (for me) short wait.

And I solved the noisy USB myself - bad setting in the TASCAM settings. Now one cable only, and a very nice sound (seems a bit quiet at the moment, though). PS Informed Gianni about this so he doesn't waste any more time on it.

Kudos to Studiologic. Gianni has just replied to my message that I put on their Web site. Fast polite response, and they will try to duplicate my setup as far as possible. Impressed.

UK-based, and UK dealer. Just contacted tech support through the Web form. We will see if I get a response. There are a couple of other little firmware bugs, but most people will probably never see them (I was swapping USB cables in and out, etc.). Obviously these things are subjective, but I felt I could get on with them very easily. I'd like to see editable AT response curves, but the function is perfectly usable as is.

Mine just arrived and I'm sort of impressed. Good points: The keyboard is perfectly playable. It's not a piano, and not a synth, but a nice mix of the two. 88 keys is good. Nice package - lightweight, feels solid Controls easy to spot, and display legible Internal speakers better than I expected! Given the few dedicated controls, UI is easier to use than I thought it would be. It's a very nice MIDI controller for soft-synths (though I haven't worked very hard on that). And the bad: The audio out through USB is terrible. It starts breaking up at about the 8 o'clock position on the volume. It actually starts feeding back at high volumes. Maybe it's the way I have it set up, (Aggregate audio device with a TASCAM audio interface) but I feel it's basically unusable. Comes in at 48kHz, 24-bit, so it should be fine. Playing back analogue to the -10dBu inputs on the TASCAM works well a bit faint on the +4dBV front inputs. Ignore this - it was a CKI problem (CKI = chair-keyboard interface = me) The Stick 2 is weird. It seems to be programmed as a pitch bend X direction on a lot of the presets as well as other things in the Y direction, and seems to have no X auto-centering!! Stick 1 doesn't seem to work that much. Again, I haven't been through all the presets. Oh, and the figure-of-8 AC adaptor cable came with a Euro-plug, rather than a UK version. Basically, it's a nice piece of gear, with the reservations above. Pianos sound pretty OK through better speakers, organ (I'm not an expert) sounds are usable, and the synth and other presets are pleasant enough and editable. Sliders/drawbars are fun. Definitely good enough for me. The other issues (USB sound out, stick assignment, etc.) are all issues that can be solved with firmware upgrades - don't know if this is something Soundlogic is known for.

FWIW, my delivery date from gear4music (UK) has just jumped from the original 20/9 to 25/9 (which, to be fair, was the last date of the estimated date range when I placed the order on 11/9).