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That demo was great.

I absolutely am loving my Tensor. I spent about an hour with it so far and it's a ton of fun. The only thing I don't like is that sometimes when I record a loop, it goes all loud as fuck and spirals out of control and I can't tame it at all, so I have to hit the pedal off completely. That is super annoying. I'm not sure what fucking setting that it, but it's dumb. Other than that, I'm trying to get the hang of it. It's nice, sounds lovely and is compact. I dig it.

Jesus Was a Robot wrote:That demo was great.

I absolutely am loving my Tensor. I spent about an hour with it so far and it's a ton of fun. The only thing I don't like is that sometimes when I record a loop, it goes all loud as fuck and spirals out of control and I can't tame it at all, so I have to hit the pedal off completely. That is super annoying. I'm not sure what fucking setting that it, but it's dumb. Other than that, I'm trying to get the hang of it. It's nice, sounds lovely and is compact. I dig it.

I found that when I ovedubbed in time stretch the overdubs were super loud. I don't know how much that came through on the video, but in person it's pretty jarring. Could that be what you are experiencing?

And thanks for all the kind words above. Glad the video is helpful.

I do hope they can fix the issues that people have been noting. As is, I feel like about 80% of what I want this pedal to do works perfectly and sounds great. And I forsee getting a lit of mileage out of it even if they don't fix this issues.

But man, those trouble spots (particularly the overdub issues and random-knob-induced artifacts) are pretty significant.

zoooombiex wrote:

Jesus Was a Robot wrote:That demo was great.

I dig it.

I found that when I ovedubbed in time stretch the overdubs were super loud.
I don't know how much that came through on the video, but in person it's pretty jarring.
Could that be what you are experiencing?

Don't you mean:
"But in person it's pretty JWARing"?

Seriously though. Thanks for the awesome demo!

I'll try to make a good demo later this week or early next week when the doc says I can play again.

There's a lot of great in this pedal. Even some of the not so great (for some) is cool in it's own way.

I've found the Red Panda gang to be very open to changes so hopefully they will work this out. The firmware updates are super easy, drag and drop.

GAS for this has been extinguished.

raj007 wrote:GAS for this has been extinguished.

Why?

Did you hear my little clips? It's fun as fuck dude.

Even without listening to clips I'm sure I'd like one at some point.

I'm lucky in that the daft things I do with pedals doesn't involve playing live, so I don't have a defined idea of what a pedal has to do and any limitations it might have are just how it is.

For example, I've found a setting on my Stamme[n] which I like a lot - if I use an expression pedal I can record a sound which I can bring in and out, but for some reason it only seems to do this for so long before all of a sudden the exp. pedal stops having an effect.

I could be annoyed about this, especially if it did it at inopportune moments during a gig, but as it doesn't matter that much to me I can be chilled about it

Not as noisy as the MicroGranny. 0/10

I noticed too late that zoooombiex titled his video "Tensor Walkthrough." I'm sure that was purposeful – calling such a thing a "demo" reframes it and might put undue pressure on it to be explicitly informative (including narration, step-by-step explanations, etc.). For my part, I didn't mean to call it what it might not have been intended to be. For a walkthrough, I still found it substantially demonstrative, more so than anything else I've seen. Anyway...

Paul_C wrote:I'm lucky in that the daft things I do with pedals doesn't involve playing live, so I don't have a defined idea of what a pedal has to do and any limitations it might have are just how it is.

For example, I've found a setting on my Stamme[n] which I like a lot - if I use an expression pedal I can record a sound which I can bring in and out, but for some reason it only seems to do this for so long before all of a sudden the exp. pedal stops having an effect.

I could be annoyed about this, especially if it did it at inopportune moments during a gig, but as it doesn't matter that much to me I can be chilled about it

I wish I could be as chill, really. I can dwell on the small percentage of something that doesn't work well instead of taking pleasure in the larger percentage that does. That's a fault, probably, in most cases. However, on an occasion such as the release and sale of a music-making device, being as casual as to accept flaws in that device's functionality has the potential to set a troubling precedent for users and buyers. This is what I was referring to when I wrote about a purchase as a tacit endorsement. If it becomes normal for the purchasing public to accept instruments and effects that partially malfunction or don't function as advertised, then a bar is lowered. Prices may creep up while quality may creep down. Reasonable expectations become too much to ask for. "Can the looping function in this $300 device work as well as any number of cheap, simple loopers made in the last decade?"

My "defined idea" of what a pedal does is determined by what the builder tells me it can do, and it should perform on stage just as well as it performs at home. If the functional extents of a pedal are explicitly defined by the builder (preferably before I buy it), then I can live with them. A "Random" function introduces action that I'm not in complete control of - OK, understood. But a function that should be completely, consistently controllable suddenly and unpredictably stops working, as on your Stamme[n]? Not OK, at least with me. That seems to be a definite fault that should not be accepted.

I've already seen a Tensor for sale on the used market. I think its "unexpected limitations" are going to be disappointing to more people than that guy. Not until a device performs to a reasonable standard (as set by other similar, available devices and the pre-sale marketing of the builder) will I pay for it. Discovering only after I've made a purchase that advertised functions have unpredictable, undesirable quirks is not good enough.

thesneakup wrote:I noticed too late that zoooombiex titled his video "Tensor Walkthrough." I'm sure that was purposeful – calling such a thing a "demo" reframes it and might put undue pressure on it to be explicitly informative (including narration, step-by-step explanations, etc.). For my part, I didn't mean to call it what it might not have been intended to be. For a walkthrough, I still found it substantially demonstrative, more so than anything else I've seen. Anyway...

Paul_C wrote:I'm lucky in that the daft things I do with pedals doesn't involve playing live, so I don't have a defined idea of what a pedal has to do and any limitations it might have are just how it is.

For example, I've found a setting on my Stamme[n] which I like a lot - if I use an expression pedal I can record a sound which I can bring in and out, but for some reason it only seems to do this for so long before all of a sudden the exp. pedal stops having an effect.

I could be annoyed about this, especially if it did it at inopportune moments during a gig, but as it doesn't matter that much to me I can be chilled about it

I wish I could be as chill, really. I can dwell on the small percentage of something that doesn't work well instead of taking pleasure in the larger percentage that does. That's a fault, probably, in most cases. However, on an occasion such as the release and sale of a music-making device, being as casual as to accept flaws in that device's functionality has the potential to set a troubling precedent for users and buyers. This is what I was referring to when I wrote about a purchase as a tacit endorsement. If it becomes normal for the purchasing public to accept instruments and effects that partially malfunction or don't function as advertised, then a bar is lowered. Prices may creep up while quality may creep down. Reasonable expectations become too much to ask for. "Can the looping function in this $300 device work as well as any number of cheap, simple loopers made in the last decade?"

My "defined idea" of what a pedal does is determined by what the builder tells me it can do, and it should perform on stage just as well as it performs at home. If the functional extents of a pedal are explicitly defined by the builder (preferably before I buy it), then I can live with them. A "Random" function introduces action that I'm not in complete control of - OK, understood. But a function that should be completely, consistently controllable suddenly and unpredictably stops working, as on your Stamme[n]? Not OK, at least with me. That seems to be a definite fault that should not be accepted.

I've already seen a Tensor for sale on the used market. I think its "unexpected limitations" are going to be disappointing to more people than that guy. Not until a device performs to a reasonable standard (as set by other similar, available devices and the pre-sale marketing of the builder) will I pay for it. Discovering only after I've made a purchase that advertised functions have unpredictable, undesirable quirks is not good enough.

No worries as far as I'm concerned on the demo/walkthrough. I really just made that video to illustrate my comments on this thread and to show what the knobs do and how they interact. I didn't even list it publicly on YT, so it's sort of an ILF exclusive. I can only hope/assume Knobs will eventually give it a proper treatment visually and musically.

As to your other comments, I agree that there is a growing trend - extending beyond the pedal industry - to release products before all the bugs are worked out. I think that results from both the ease of firmware upgrades and the increasing pace of product development. (Currently dealing with the same thing with a new Nord ...) Some companies are very responsive and listen to feedback and make changes (or fix discovered errors), but not everyone. Curious to see how the Red Panda team addresses this. They seem like nice and competent folks from the couple times I've emailed with them.

zoooombiex wrote:Curious to see how the Red Panda team addresses this. They seem like nice and competent folks from the couple times I've emailed with them.

Despite my tone, I'm optimistic. I fret because I care! I've hoped for a Tensor-like thing and then for the Tensor itself for a long time, and the gear geeks I know have conversed and speculated about it since the prototype was first seen. These days, I just want things to meet my expectations, not even exceed them. Staying tuned for more news and reviews.

codetocontra wrote:The artifacts it produces are quite annoying. Manual blames the time stretch if set too far. That's pretty dumb. It's not musical and makes the time stretch not usable.

I'd like to circle back to this because as someone who does a lot of time stretching through various platforms, I didn't hear anything that wasn't expected from the effect during the walkthrough video. Any chance anyone can timestamp me a specific point or provide more clips?

D.o.S. wrote:

codetocontra wrote:The artifacts it produces are quite annoying. Manual blames the time stretch if set too far. That's pretty dumb. It's not musical and makes the time stretch not usable.

I'd like to circle back to this because as someone who does a lot of time stretching through various platforms, I didn't hear anything that wasn't expected from the effect during the walkthrough video. Any chance anyone can timestamp me a specific point or provide more clips?

I didn't notice any significant artifacts during time stretching (left half of the time knob), but they are pretty bad at the extreme end of time compression (right half of the knob) - see around 1:28-1:36


Edit: based on some further investigation, there are two main settings that cause the staticky artifacts noted above:

(1) time compression set above 3:00 + hold set to overwrite (other setting irrelevant)

(2) random knob set above 9:00 + hold set to overwrite + any time compression or time stretching (i.e. time set anywhere oher than 12:00)

Interestingly, these are both dependent on the hold switch being in "overwrite" mode. If you flip that switch to "rec" or "next" the static instantly disappears. Flip it back to "overwrite" and the static reappears.

This doesn't impact the ticking noise at the loop seam. But the random knob will accentuate that issue because it means the loop is restarting more frequently.

Also, the loop seam appears to be specifically related to overwriting something that crosses the seam. So the first loop you record (regardless of the hold mode) seems fine. Even if you hold down the hold button for the full 4.8 seconds and record something that lasts from the very start to the very end (eg a drone) the seam is pretty clean (just a tiny low frequency blip that I don't find very objectionable, though it would obviously be better if it were totally seamless). However if you overdub something that crosses the seam, then you get a much more intrusive and high pitched click at the seam. That definitely needs to be fixed IMO.

Also, a tick can appear right as you press or release hold. But it only happens in certain settings and (usually) only if there is a note sounding as you press or release hold. And only when recording a fresh loop - if a loop is already going when you press hold it won't tick when pressing or releasing the hold button. The actual ticking sound for this issue is the same as the tick you get when overdubbing across the seam, but this tick is just a one-off real-time tick that doesn't get printed to the loop.

I started a long list of settinga that do this, but too much hassle for a phone post. But as an example, put the pedal in bypass, overwrite mode, play something sustained, and press hold - there is an audible tick as you press and telease hold, but that tick won't repeat with the loop.

D.o.S. wrote:

codetocontra wrote:The artifacts it produces are quite annoying. Manual blames the time stretch if set too far. That's pretty dumb. It's not musical and makes the time stretch not usable.

I'd like to circle back to this because as someone who does a lot of time stretching through various platforms, I didn't hear anything that wasn't expected from the effect during the walkthrough video. Any chance anyone can timestamp me a specific point or provide more clips?

My post a few down from the one you quoted has specific timestamps for that video.