ForumsHardware ← X questions and strange Z behaviour of some pads sometimes

Greetings form Myanmar !

I have recently got my Soundplane and I love it .

One thing that I do not understand is the X sensing and I am hoping that some of you can help me.

Is the X sensor working across the whole plane only? Unlike Y which can work on every pad ?

What is the matrix switch on the client software ?
Does that switch on the X ?

What is dX and dY on Aalto when one is using the osc connection ?
I think it is double value X and Y.

Yesterday I was playing and suddenly noticed that lower pads (like four of them in the middle) on the Soundplane where rather jittery then the rest on the Z touch.
I checked with the software and sure enough there was a visible jitter in the lower part middle.
This is something I could hear.

I tried “massaging” and various settings on the client but it did not work .

Then I by chance "grabbed" the Soundplane by it`s left upper corner (moe where the logo is and the USB connector) with a pinch like grab, squeezing gently the top and bottom together right there where the logo is.
Suddenly the plane on the graphic (calibrated) was super straight not only in the middle but everywhere on the plane.

I know about earthing issues (could be the the problem) as half of my instrument`s rely on good grounding and I think I have here in the house good ground.

In any case I woke up this morning calibrated the Sound plane and all was fine (!?) it was jittery on the calibrated app display (very little jitter) but it was even and sounded great on the whole surface …..

Yesterday I had the air-condition in the room on and off.

The one thing that is really weird that still when I grab the left upper corner it is like straight on the calibrated app display, almost no jitter at all.

It is incredible good even without the grabbing of the left corner but I am just interested to see if somebody has an explanation for this strange behaviour.
As I said now there is very little even jitter across the whole surface (no problem for playing) but as I soon as I touch the left upper corner it just vanishes almost totally .

In any case I can not be more happier with this beautiful instrument and I wish you all the best here from Yangon.

rastko

Hi Rastko,

First thing I'm wondering is, did you do "select carriers" for your Soundplane? This looks at all the possible frequencies and chooses the ones with lowest noise. If you do this you may stop seeing the jittery areas. Go to Expert -> select carriers. The result will be saved in the Prefs file.

In any case the Jitter is radio-frequency noise at some frequencies. Normally the "loudest" noise is from the Soundplane's own power supply, because the frequencies in question do not travel far. But it's possible there may be external noise sources. So if you do "select carriers" when you are seeing the worst noise, you will guard against that particular noise source.

X and Y are absolute positions from 0-1 across the surface. dX and dY are the change in position after a touch is started, until it ends. So, moving right makes dX > 0, moving left makes dX

The matrix switch sends the raw touch matrix over OSC. It is not normally needed. You can see the example Max/MSP patch for an example if you are interested and Have Max/MSP.

Hi Randy,

thank you very much for your answer.

I did choose "select carriers" still there is even jitter across the plane.
But this could be normal and it does not affect the playing.
Let me play a bitt and maybe I will send you a video screen grab so you can tell me is it normal or not .
Then you will see also the effect of me touching the corner.

I have massive problems with electricity here so even if I think my grounding is ok who knows ...

OK, now I understand the x,y and the dX and dY (I was close with double x,y :-)).

Thank you once more and I wish you a nice day here from Yangon

rastko