What’s the secret to infinite knobs or “continuous encoders”?
Hey all,
Just got an Axiom 25 and I’m finding the infinite knobs to be very temperamental… I use them for EQ and effects mainly - but I find it very difficult to control them. Occasionally I will be turning them and there value will jump ahead drastically or back drastically. Am I missing something?
Thanks guys!
they are not meant to be used as eq or fx parameters.
they act more like scroll knobs.
Did you map the EQ out to the same CC to update the position? sometimes this can cause erratic behavior.
Try changing the controller type when you are mapping them.
They can be used perfectly for these functions.
Possibly??.. Haha, sorry I’m a little new to all of this. Can you explain in a little more detail. I basically mapped three of the knobs to different EQs - High, Mid, Low.
I used encoders for things such as FX for 6 months or so, so I know about this issue. Unfortunately, there is a solution but it comes with a drawback. You can decrease the rotary sensitivity in the mapping, allowing one movement of the encoder to make a smaller adjustment to the FX or EQ; you can decrease this sensitivity to get the smoothness that you want. The drawback to this is that it takes a lot of time and turning to move from, say, normal to -infinite on your EQs or 50 to 100 on the FX. I tried doing this and found that smoothness is too much of a physical pain in the ass to do. As such, I found the sweet spot where I get a good amount of smoothness in the encoder but still maintain a reasonable about of turning to achieve it.
Yeah, I suppose it’s all about finding that sweet spot, however long it may take. Oy. What sensitivity do you have your knobs at? Cause actually, I think my sensitivity is low. I turn it a little bit and it barely goes anywhere (this is mainly when the jumping forward in values happens, ie, from 60 to 98 or something).
*Turn it a lot rather.
Hm. I may be thinking of acceleration. I’m at work right now but after, I’ll check my settings and confirm what my knob settings are and what affects what.
Alright, so checked out my setting for my encoders and I have them at 100% sensitivity and 50% acceleration. From what I discovered (and what is actually obvious from the name), higher sensitivity = more unit change per “movement” of encoder (click) and vice versa; higher acceleration = faster increase in unit change per “movement” of the encoder, and vice versa.
As such, you can reduce your sensitivity to what you like and increase your acceleration to allow you to catch more of the FX or EQ units while you quickly move up or down - this makes it hard for you to make smooth, long changes over time though. You could reduce the sensitivity and acceleration but, as I said before, it takes a great amount of turns to move through the units. My setting seem pretty comparable to actually knobs, but it’s truly personal preference. Hoped this helped.
Leave the acceleration at 0 and play around with the sensitivity until you feel comfortable with it. If it is indeed an endless knob, set it as a knob, not an encoder.
Awesome - thanks guys - this does help. Busy weekend though, gonna have to wait till next week to start toying around. I’ll keep you posted with the results.
Thanks again!
So in Traktor I have the option to pick either Knob or Rotary when I assign the encoders. I’m assuming Rotary would be the same as an endless encoder (since when I say its a knob it doesn’t even effect the value of the EQ or FX), thus I have it on Knob. But when it’s assigned as a knob I am unable to adjust sensitivity and acceleration - is this because Traktor is reading it as a non-continuous knob, so sensitivity and acceleration adjustment isn’t necessary?
Thanks guys.
Yes. That is correct.
Also, if you have it set to “Encoder”, make sure you are using the appropriate mode. In Traktor, you can select either 7Fh/01h or 3Fh/41h. If the value is jumping erratically, you may have the wrong mode selected.
btw, what controller are you mapping?
Pretty much - yes.
An endless Knob is just that, a knob with a 360 degrees in a static hand-twist motion, while an encoder allows you the same function as a Jogwheel - with acceleration and sensitivity. In Traktor while you can select a knob to be an encoder it does not work properly, however in knob mode it should be fine for EQ’s. Track selection, scrolling or bending however is really a no-no without sensitivity you have no control over speed.
By the sounds of it the Axiom uses endless knobs rather than encoders so changing mode within traktor won’t make a difference - it had me miffed on the APC40 why nothing was working the way I wanted till I discovered there is actually only one encoder on board and 16 knobs (and its the cue level of all things!) which kinda pissed me off.
@ DirtyKnob - It’s an Axiom 25. And the only time I can select either of those settings is when the encoders are assigned as Rotaries (in which case they don’t even effect the EQ and FX values) so I’m forced to use it as an “Analog Fader / Knob”.
@ Deevey - Yeah, the endless encoders do work as knobs for my EQ and FX, but occasionally their behavior is erratic. It forces you to keep a close eye on the values on both the controller and Traktor to make sure the numbers (or position of the knob) is where you want it. Annoying, but it looks like there’s nothing I can do about it. Unless someone makes a cheap controller I can get that has only non-endless encoders I can use for EQ and FX.
Sorry I mean the other way round - endless encoders should work fine as knobs, just not the other way round - behringer’s new controller/midi mixer looks like it might be perfect for you at appx $150 ? - there rings on the encoders so no need to watch the screen so closely.
or a UC33, certainly not the prettiest but a workhorse for sure.
Yeah the UC-33 would be nice. It’s discontinued though - maybe I can find a good price for it on eBay.
@ deevey - do you mean thus guy:
Oh gods no .. I mean the new CMD line MM1 soon to be released (oct I think) which might be worth a look click here for the article
Also the Existing Behringer BCR2000 can be gotten dirt cheap too for 32 endless rotary encoders that works beautifully with Traktor (or anything else).- the only downside is its a lil bulky, but good enough for daft punk to perform live with touring.
I recently sold one for around $70 (was gathering dust since I got an APC)