new (again) user - frustration

[Nelson Baboon]

I'm just about to bail for the evening.

I'm not finding the docs relevant to me to be anywhere near helpful.

I owned an ndlr a couple of years ago, reached a point where i didn't have midi gear, and sold it. Realized that the ndlr would be quite fun now, and found one used.

went to the quick start. of course, the quick start doesn't tell you what is supposed to happen so that maybe you can troubleshoot.  it just says 'and you're NOODLING'. ok. So, I follow the instructions, and nothing happens. I have my midi monitor up. I'll do it again: hit the motif 1 play button (at least I THINK it's the right one) and nothing happens at all.midi monitor shows nothing. ok - so, i guess i need to press a chord button. I do that - nothing.

I first encountered this and noticed that the firmware was old. I see on the site that below a certain version you need to reload the factory defaults. Of course, there is nothing called that in the manual, and the site doesn't tell you quite what you need to do. Of course, I found it, but it took a little while, and I wonder why consistent terminology can't be used?

Now I'm successfully updated, and still nothing happens when I do the quick start. I still don't remember what is supposed to happen. Is the idea that I' supposed to rtfm BEFORE the quick start? That would be amusing.

(and yes - successful connection, which was necessary for the firmware update. Live sees the ndlr, etc. NOT a beginner at this at all)

EDIT: complaints stand. instructions should be given in the quick start about what to check in the midi menu and how to get there. I was tricked in that a couple of times some quick messages appeared in my midi monitor, which showed channel 1. Since I have the usb cable connected, I figured that the connection was ok, but obviously I needed to edit that. (A good place to start, for me, is to just set all of them to all, and then edit from there). A quick start should assume that the user knows NOTHING about the device. In any case, now sending out midi.

[Darryl]

Hi Nelson, glad you could get it to play.

We're always up for enhancing the documentation. I'm not quite sure what more we could say regarding choosing the MIDI ports and channels, besides to try All first. Is that what you are suggesting?

We purposely avoid using All as it can impact The NDLRs performance and people might be tempted to just leave it that way. Though we did leave it in there as a convenience for troubleshooting and we do suggest trying that in the Quick Start Guide.

Here's the Quick Start Section on configuring the MIDI Outputs. Would be interested in hearing from anyone who struggled with this to understand how to best improve on it.

   

[Nelson Baboon]

"Hi Nelson, glad you could get it to play.

We're always up for enhancing the documentation. I'm not quite sure what more we could say regarding choosing the MIDI ports and channels, besides to try All first. Is that what you are suggesting?

We purposely avoid using All as it can impact The NDLRs performance and people might be tempted to just leave it that way. Though we did leave it in there as a convenience for troubleshooting and we do suggest trying that in the Quick Start Guide.

Here's the Quick Start Section on configuring the MIDI Outputs. Would be interested in hearing from anyone who struggled with this to understand how to best improve on it."

weird - hit 'reply' but the posting didn't differentiate your post from my reply.

wasn't suggesting that per se (that's just my methodology) - just (in a quick start context) specific instructions about how to get to the midi settings, and what to change. I mean, i have devices that work pretty much exactly like this. the pyramid sequencer requires you to choose the usb port if you're using that, etc. this just says to set the channel, and I saw the usb coming in as channel one on my midi monitor. it says to go into the settings 1 menu). if you're using the machine for the first time, how do you know how to do this? similarly - it says online for early versions of the firmware to set to factory defaults, with no instructions there about how to do it. looking up 'defaults' in the manual didn't provide clarity....eventually finding 'reset', and then figuring that out. people (at least I) cannot intuit the keystrokes often if I haven't used the machine. In my case, I did use it a couple of years ago, but i've totally forgotten...

[Jesse Johannesen]

This is great feedback, thank you Nelson. I'll work with Darryl to go over this documentation and see if we can make it a little easier to digest without having used the device beforehand, since that is really the whole purpose of having such a document in the first place.
Cheers,
Jesse

[Nelson Baboon]

maybe this is just me, but i think that a 'quick start' should have all of the info necessary for a total beginner to walk through the process without hunting in the manual for information. Same with instructions to update the firmware on your site - i think that maybe others check and then update the firmware first thing.

I also think that the quick start should go further than it does - maybe as far as setting up a more comprehensive example using other tools. I'm sure that the reference manual contains all of the info, but how does a new user know where to begin? I think that in addition to having all the info, a manual should help someone get there efficiently.

[faru]

I jump on this train, as I just got my ndlr last week and I'm quite frustrated with the handling and onboarding. A lot of controls are so cryptic on the display, even with the explanation in the manual, I took me several rereads to make sense of it. While I love the idea of the noodler, its such a pain to use honestly. its clearly written and designed by engineers and developers. I had the same trouble with the quick start, that it didn't really help much and took me quite some digging in youtube to figure stuff out.

But to be constructive: 1. I would give the manual to a professional copy writer, someone who understands the needs of non-technical users.
2. about the UX, I dont know where to start. I get that you probably have limited resources and the tiny display has so many limitations, but looking into the future, having a professional Hardware UX designer could help making this tool really great. The first idea which pops into mind is not cramming so many controls into the display in order to use more descriptive labels and not write labels vertical. then e.g. Using different icons instead of arrows for the selected menu states and I could go on. I hope the feedback is not too harsh, its just my current frustration as I was so excited about the device.

I wont give up yet though with noodling :-)

[Jesse Johannesen]

Thanks for the feedback, don't worry it's not too harsh. The NDLR was the first product our team designed and as such it has supplied us with many, many lessons, so as we move forward we'll bring these experiences with us. The NDLR is definitely a quirky little box, but it continues to bring me inspiration and I'm always thinking of new ways of contorting it to get it to do something new.
If you need some assistance getting a handle on it, I'd be happy to set up a short zoom meeting to go over some of your questions, and if you need more support after that I'm available to provide hourly tutorials targeted to your needs in my off time. Feel free to reach out to me via Support@conductivelabs.com if you'd like to discuss setting up a meeting.
Jesse

[faru]

thanks Jesse! thanks kind of you. I will note down my questions and see if we can answer them here or jump on a call. Im sure with some iterations it can be a really great device!
from the top of my head, the only question I can remember for now is how to slow down the drone pads. is there a way, without slowing down the bpm, to play less / fewer notes? I am into drone and ambient and I feel like the notes get triggered way to fast.

[Jesse Johannesen]

thanks Jesse! thanks kind of you. I will note down my questions and see if we can answer them here or jump on a call. Im sure with some iterations it can be a really great device!
from the top of my head, the only question I can remember for now is how to slow down the drone pads. is there a way, without slowing down the bpm, to play less / fewer notes? I am into drone and ambient and I feel like the notes get triggered way to fast.

They can be set to play one quarter note per bar (click drone button till triangle points down and edit the note density, 1 filled in square with 3 empty squares is the 1 quarter-note setting), or you can use a slow lfo in the mod matrix to enable and disable the part. The downside is that the LFO time sync is a bit aleatoric and can feel like it's got a mind of it's own at times. They don't always reset the way you would expect, which can be very "ambient" in effect, now that I think about it, but your mileage may vary.

[faru]

thanks Jesse! I feel a bit dumb asking all these questions and not figuring it out myself.
I am already using it with the setting you describe, as I believe its the default setting, but for my kind of slowness, it could be 4 times slower and im already down to 60bpm. but I figured having no squares and just having it trigger when I press the note change button works for me.

I couldnt figure out the setting for the lfo and the mind of its own sounds nice. what do you mean by enable / disable the part?
I choose lets say lfo 1, set it to square 100% mod amount and put the destination to drone on / off. . im not sure what mod range means either 0 to 0 or 1 to 1.
or do I choose drone trigger? the mod range there goes to 19. sometimes the numbers turn red.
thanks again for the help!