Anyone try out the Keith Macmillen Qunexus for Ambient pads?

[V0RT3X]

http://www.keithmcmillen.com/qunexus/tour



It seems right up an Ambient producers alley considering the size. It offers full polyphonic aftertouch which is pretty cool! I am really considering replacing my Akai LPK25 with this for a portable keyboard.

Anyone try using one?

[windspace]

I've had one for about a week. Out of the box, it's a very touchy setup...too much so for ol' ham-handed me! However, they provide setup software (free download) that allows you to adjust just about every parameter, i.e.-Velocity sensitivity, pressure sensitivity, tilt sensitivity (tilting your finger on a key, not tilting the whole unit-no gyro here), midi routings, CV In/Out routings, MIDI-to-CV setup, etc. After some more time playing with it, I'm sure I will find a sweet spot for me. for now though, I need to put in more time with it and keep trying different settings.
A cool thing - the QuNexus can hold four different setups on board. You could program a setup with no pressure or tilt, but with velocity and a particular pitch bend range for instance. And another with all the sensors active and set to your preferences. Pleasantly, you can leave the QuNexus setup software running and upload new settings up to four at a time as you are using the QuNexus as a controller. So that could be a big plus for a live environment. I'm finding that I will very likely need to program different setups for playing different plug-in instruments. There are an awful lot of settings in all the plug-ins for velocity, pressure, pitch bend, etc. that will be more or less interactive with the settings on the QuNexus. That said, it's a plus to be able to dial it in as a custom controller for a given plug-in...or even for a particular patch.
In addition, one of the things that drew me to it was the fact that there are multiple CV outputs. There's a Gate and three CV outputs. You can setup the CV's to respond to Tilt, Pressure, etc. QuNexus can also function as a MIDI-to-CV converter to pass MIDI through and output CV's to your hardware. I've been using the QuNexus as a keyboard for my old Arp 2600. I have had problems though. so far, the Gate and basic CV to control oscillator pitch works great. But pitch bend is whacked. Even with the QuNexus setting at two semitones, the Arp responds with bends to about two octaves. I've got to actually measure the CV output. I do not understand this... I need to do more thinking about the other two CV outputs as well. Have not had good results yet with them either. Tried to control filter cutoff with pressure for instance and did not get the response that I expected. I'm thinking that most of these are pilot error problems!
It plays well with my iPad as far as I have gotten with that. As with other instruments, the settings need to be tweaked.

[Nemo]

Mine is on its way and I should have it next week. I hope I haven't gotten in over my head! The poly pressure was a big draw for me, and it seems infinitely better made than those little Korg ones. It won't be my main controller by any means and right now I don't plan/need to use the CV outputs so hopefully I'll be okay. I was going to also try it with my MS20 Mini but I'm not sure that the voltage range will be compatible. The Korg uses a different voltage standard afaik.

[windspace]

Mine is on its way and I should have it next week. I hope I haven't gotten in over my head! The poly pressure was a big draw for me, and it seems infinitely better made than those little Korg ones. It won't be my main controller by any means and right now I don't plan/need to use the CV outputs so hopefully I'll be okay. I was going to also try it with my MS20 Mini but I'm not sure that the voltage range will be compatible. The Korg uses a different voltage standard afaik.

Go for it with your MS20!! It looks like you should be able to setup the QuNexus CV Pitch Scaling to match. There are three options:

(From QuNexus Editor Manual) - "You can set the Pitch Scaling Scheme in the box to the left of the Gate Legato box. You canset this to 1 Volt per Octave, 1.2 Volts per Octave, or Hertz per Volt (an older scaling scheme). "

Above all - Have fun!!

[Nemo]

That's great news about being able to set the volt offsets. Sounds like Keith really put a lot of thought into this product. I can't wait to try it out for myself! It's also good to know that someone else around here has one as well. If worse comes to worse perhaps we can compare notes sometime! Though I'm not sure how useful I'm going to be until I get the hang of it.

[windspace]

That's great news about being able to set the volt offsets. Sounds like Keith really put a lot of thought into this product. I can't wait to try it out for myself! It's also good to know that someone else around here has one as well. If worse comes to worse perhaps we can compare notes sometime! Though I'm not sure how useful I'm going to be until I get the hang of it.

I'm sure you will enjoy it1 And it would be great to compare notes. I will still be getting the hang of mine as it's unfortunately not exactly at the top of my priority list!! You can download the manuals from the Keith McMillen website. They are actually pretty thorough manuals.

[windspace]

That's great news about being able to set the volt offsets. Sounds like Keith really put a lot of thought into this product. I can't wait to try it out for myself! It's also good to know that someone else around here has one as well. If worse comes to worse perhaps we can compare notes sometime! Though I'm not sure how useful I'm going to be until I get the hang of it.

I'm sure you will enjoy it1 And it would be great to compare notes. I will still be getting the hang of mine as it's unfortunately not exactly at the top of my priority list!! You can download the manuals from the Keith McMillen website. They are actually pretty thorough manuals.