I normally don’t comment on videos, but I must say, this video was super useful, there isn’t many videos about this product and topic! I can finally start enjoying and making the best out of this device! Great video! Thank you 🙏🏻
I've got the Avatar PD705, which is exactly the same unit. I got some expressiveness out of doing a velocity crossfade between two snare samples I found. One is a snare without the snares on (kind of like a tom) and another snare sample (from the same pack) that is more like noise (cause snares on). When I hit the pad lightly, you hear more the snare/noise sample, but the harder you hit it gradually introduces more of the snare-less body sound. It sounds surprisingly natural, and reduces the machine gun effect of normal sampled drums. The setting on these units for velocity crossfade is called mix, if I remember it right. I put the mix starting point at velocity 80.
I really appreciate your videos, especially on the Avatar PD705. Not a lot makes good reviews of this Sample Pad. I have been thinking of saving up to get one of this to replace my Medelli, I play live gigs and this seems to fit my playing and set up. Your videos convinced me that this is a good instrument, Hopefully I could save enough this coming Christmas so that I could my hands on one of these.
I dropped my SPDS at a gig and it jacked up the menu screen and some of my programs...I didnt want to spend $1000 plus to replace it...but this??I"m buying it today!Thanks bro!
Bro, thanks for doing this. I was LITERALLY loading some keyboard chords today to use live. After watching this, it totally resolved some issues. Right on!!
A few days ago I bought another cousin of the Avatar PD705 from Thomann in Germany, which is called Millenium NonaPad. It came with firmware version 4.10. On the Thomann website there was an update to version 4.18, so I installed the update. No pads detected after that. In the VER menue there was no version for Detect. I tried installing it again, tried reset, removed power, tried factory reset but to no avail. Then I looked up the HXW website and found version 4.22 there. I installed that and everything worked like a charm.
I'm not going to lie and say this is better than the Roland SP whatever or even the Alesis mutlipad (which is probably one of the better products Alesis has ever released), but the price for what it does, most people would be perfectly fine with this especially if budget is an issue.
Hi. Thank you. The firmware update thing was quite useful. I mean, for me, it worked after a few trials. I grabbed an 32GB NTFS formatted stick. That was maybe to much. It did nothing and at least crashed. Then I crawled through my drawers and find an 8 GB stick. Recognized somehow but didn't work. Finally, the 8GB stick FAT32 formatted worked. Just for your info.
The latest firmware (V4.27) has two noticeable improvements: 1) I only had to do the update once, not twice, and 2) MIDI triggering/latency has been tightened up. When I bought this unit (Avatar) about a month ago one of the first things I did was test for latency into my iPad and my Mac, and in my professional opinion it was a bit much to deal with. It's still not perfect but this update has definitely tightened things up.
Any clue how to get ableton live to recognize it? I want to use it as a midi controller. But I plug it in and get nothing. Plus it won’t recognize any usb to update.
I guess you'd be best off connecting it via a USB B to USB A cable (printer cable). The drumpad should turn up in Ableton as a MIDI input option. I'll try this out soon myself, as Ableton is much more powerful than the units internal sampling engine.
Seeing lots of update error comments. A few things to remember. Updates must be done with a USB 2.0 stick, not USB 3. It must be formatted in fat/fat32, and preferably have only the update .bin file on it. Also you may have to update in sequence from earlier Versions. If the version is earlier than 3.0, you would need to upgrade to 3.00 first, then you can update the latest firmware. After ver.4.10 you only need to run update once. Latest is V4.27. Update can take some time and seem to not be doing anything, If you did not get an update fail message at the start... just wait until it re-boots.
Hello. Thank you for your video tutorial. Quick question, I just bought one but my problem is the sound volume. I have turned the volume nozzle to the max both the master volume and headphones but I feel like the sound is still a bit low. Is this normal? thanks
I think it depends on your headphones impedance. I usually use mine plugged into an audio interface and hearing it that way, so I don't use the direct headphone output much.
Hey Justin, I'm trying to loop some of the pre-loaded wave samples. In the LOOP option, it looks like my only options are looping the pre-set kits and then midi only chooses certain patterns. Then in Record mode, when I get it set up and hit play it says, "Warning no MIDI". I just want to loop a 1/16th note rhythm using 2 different African drum sounds. Ca you help?
greetings friend I have a problem with the Pad, it gives me an error in the home, I update the fireware but it doesn't solve it, I don't know what it could be.
@@demonicsweaters Hello. I bought two PD705, both give an error when turning on and after a few seconds no button responds, no option can be selected and the sound kit cannot be used either. I would like to know what I can do to solve this error, I already installed the firmware from the official page but the problem has not been solved. Checking the internet, an error with the integrated circuit winbond w9812g6kh-6 is mentioned, but before changing it, I would like to know if the problem is due to another situation. Thanks.
hey buddy, would you know which other brand cymbals would work with Avatar drum set? example: can I have a 2 pieces hi hat ? or maybe a bigger ride cymbal from EFNOTE?
Hey bro! I have a quick question (thanks in advance) it sounds really quiet I mean with headphones I can hear the patches… I had the Alesis and the sample master volumen was louder… is any way to fix this? I don’t wanna return it 😢
My kick trigger is all set up but it doesn’t let me do a dual sample even though in theory all the settings should allow it. Have you tried to do this before?
Do you know what kind of splitter I’d get to get the 2 trigger outputs to make 4? Also if I were to get a splitter for both of them could I hook two Yamaha ku1000s into one side to make silent double bass? Would the Yamaha hh65 hat pedal work in one of the foot switch inputs? Sorry for so many questions. Any help would be appreciated.
I would assume a regular insert cable adapter amzn.to/43SnWuI, though I've never tried to do it in mine, so I'm not 100% sure that would work. I don't know about the Yamaha hi hat, but my guess would be no. You should be able to hook up two ku1000s though.
I followed all of these steps and saved the wave files to my usb stick. Inserted into my drum pad, but no matter what I do it keeps saying "Warning No User Wave". Don't know why its not reading my thumb drive. =(
How can I send music from my phone to the avatar? I have three recorded tracks in my phone needed to be transferred to the unit via USB.. I can’t get this to work
You can use it along with whatever other equipment you wish. There's not really a microphone input, so sampling is best done on other devices then imported.
If we link the pads from the Loop in Pad 1 and Pad 2 where Pad 2 will insert a Loop(Metronome desing) and when hitting it 1 time, will it play Together with it and will play until the end of both tracks?🎉
Hey there DS and thanks for all of the videos on the Avatar! How do i tell the Avatar to read midi in while using usb-b? I'm new to this but basically I am hoping to use MainStage patches controlled via Avatar and send audio out from the Avatar. If I use usb-b cable I am hearing Avatar sounds out of the Avatar box and MainStage sounds when plugged in to my laptop (I know ... newbie 🤦♂). Thanks!
Thank you so much for the video, I got my own Avatar PD705 and it's really cool! I've used your advice and was able to use TRIG input 1 for a bass drum trigger, but I can't seem to get FS input 1 to work with a simple keyboard sustain pedal. The one I'm using is a Casio SP-3 sustain pedal. Every time I try to open and close the hi-hat, it doesn't seem to control the hi-hat sound but only adds another hi-hat sound on top of the hi-hat sound I'm playing on the pad. It's as if I'm closing the hi-hats and hitting them while they're already closed at the same time. It's on the HHpedal Mode in the PAD menu, and it says it's controlling PAD 9, so I'm not really sure what's going on. Sorry if this is confusing, but your help would be greatly appreciated. Once again, thank you!
@@demonicsweaters I tried using a Yamaha controller pedal and it does half the trick by opening and closing the hi-hat, but it's not registering as a foot switch any time I press the pedal, so it doesn't make a hi-hat closing sound when I'm not hitting the pad. I was wondering what brand and model you're using for your sustain pedal? Since it's proven to work, it'll definitely save me time and money trying to go out and experimenting with other pedals.
Hi, again! These guys from HXW are awesome! I contacted them because of the latency issue I found and provide some measurements with my PD705-like DD90 Gear4Music device. I measured about 7.5ms with my eDRUMin10 device and about 30ms with the HXW device (USB MIDI, Win10, M-Audio Fast Track Ultra 8x8, Buffer 64 samples@44.1kHz, Superior Drummer 3, Cubase 12). After a few emails, their engineer confirmed the latency and they will provide a new firmware version in about two weeks. I am quite impressed! "Hi, Manuel, We tested the pad and also found the latency. We are going to improve it at next version. It may take about two weeks to update the algorithm, please wait for some days. I will send you message as soon as the new firmware is launched. Sincerely"
Great video ! , do you know if you can add a click to a sample and have them in separete channels , for example the sample and the sounds go to the front and the clic plus the samples to your headphones ? , thanks
Thanks for the turorials. Have you ever used this as a midi controller? I have ordered one, and only intend to trigger drums via Ableton Live/ plugins.
When converting your sample from stereo down to mono in Audacity, how different is it to instead go "Tracks | Mix | Mix Stereo Down To Mono" compared to how you did it in this video?
Hey man, I wanna buy an similar drumpad called Nonapad. Seems they‘re pretty much the same thing. Would an Alesis mesh kick Tower work with that? Like the one you had on the Nitro, just mesh..
Hi, I'm using a Roland KD-10 kick drum trigger connected to FS2 on the back of the unit via a 1/4" TS jack. I'm also using a Roland FD-9 Hi-hat pedal connected to FS1 on the back of the unit via a 1/4" TS jack. However, the unit does not see either. According to the manual, in the "TRIG" settings there are supposed to be 6 different "TYPES" to choose from but none of them are visible, all I see on the screen is a forward slash like this / . Your help is appreciated. BTW, I'm running Firmware Version 4.10 on a new machine. Thanks!
@@demonicsweaters That worked, thanks! After that it was easy to select the right kick wave file. Pretty sure the HH will work in 2 now. BTW, there are dropped strikes on the pads and also a renegade kick that comes out of nowhere that's really loud. I'm on the fence about keeping it, I'll know in a few more days. Thanks again.
@@demonicsweaters I connected the kick trigger to Input 1 and it worked after I changed the wave file from hi-hat to kick. Then I connected the hi-hat trigger to input 2 and it worked after I changed the wave file from kick to hi-hat. Bottom line users should connect kick to input 2 and the hi-hat to input 1 to save a little hassle. As I mentioned earlier and according to the manual users are supposed to connect to FS1 and FS2 but that's b.s. Writing back to you just in case someone needs help in the future, all the best.
@@demonicsweaters UPDATE: i manage to put wave files on my avatar. But the sound is a trash. All of wave files that i uploaded was sound like turning in different radio station..
@@demonicsweaters the firmware is updated but i don't have sound manager and i don't know how to use it and where can i get it. I don't know the sample rate either. I just downloaded the wave files on internet. Can you please teach me how to use a sound manager and where can i get the app as well as the sample rate.. Thank you
@@chilltv9626 my first reply has my link to teach you how to use the wave manager. The link to download it is in the video description. Hopefully that will help you :)
I did actually successfully used the HXW v4.2 Firmware on top of the Millenium/Thoman device firmware v4.11 - [a double flashing procedure is needed only with versions below 4.10]. I felt that this was not needed though, as there might be always the chance to "brick" the device ? So beware- have not seen a version history anywhere!
How can I play 9 different loop on all 9 pad, like for an example pad 1 have a clap loop playing and pad 2 have a cowbell loop playing, and the clap loop and the cowbell loop playing at the same time, how can I do that?
