Artiphon

@ZUrlocker When you hit the record pad and the metronome starts, it doesn't start recording until you play a note. Then, it will record until you hit the middle menu (logo) button again, at this point it will wait until the end of the current bar and then begin looping. It's different from a guitar pedal in that it does sort of quantize this part, but not the actual playing/notes. 

Hey fellow creators looking forward to the Orba I plan on using it with my roli software and in Reason Studio also on my IOS apps which I have a lot of MPE ones and with my SP 404 SX  and Kaoss Pad 2 and my East West Minstry Of Rock 2 software 

I hope to colab with some people on here 

Okay, 24 hours with my Orba and I have some first impressions I'll share:

Hardware Construction and Interface Usability: Great work Artiphon! 

Very thoughtful design for how users will interface with the Orba. It is a pleasure to use and the controls are intuitive and easy to learn. Feels good in the hand. The right weight for longer sessions - Not too light to feel like a toy - Not too heavy to prevent longer sessions - Just right for me.

Now, some constructive feedback and ideas for improvement: 

#1) Looper -  The looper function is a critical function of this device achieving its potential as a standalone synth. I notice that the record loop function works well however there is a noticeable delay between the end of the loop and the restart of the loop. I have recorded several loops and ensured I ended the recording immediately after playing last note. I also tried recording loops of various lengths (2 bar, 4, etc.) to see if it was a length issue. All of my results experienced a slight but noticeable delay between end of loop and restart of loop. Drums are the most noticeable instrument this occurs with, the bass chord and lead are less noticeable. This would be a priority improvement for me to be able to use Orba without the app and/or a DAW. 

#2) Quantization - I agree with others above, a Quantization feature on the device (not app) is priority because most of us don't play as well as a metronome. We need the ability to adjust directly on the device.

#3) Change key from device -  I also agree that a key change feature on the device (not app) is priority. We need to be able to select key including toggle from major to minor on the device.

#4) The Desktop and Mobile app - 

 Ok lots of work to do here. What I'd suggest first (before any effort is expended) is for Artiphon to internally consider: What you want this app to be to its users? I question whether you even need an app outside of something to push firmware updates. Who is your target market? 

Consider: 

- Entry level beginner musicians have almost everything (See my list above)  they need to make music directly on the great piece of hardware you've designed. The app is not adding value to this segment, other than a very small list of additional sounds, which I'm sure you intend to grow over time  however......

- The world doesn't need another sound library or DAW so why take it in that direction? Ableton, FL Studio, Garage Band etc. perform well in this space and work great with the Orba so what do you have to add here? If I want a nice ambient soothing pad vs. the chord built into Orba, I'm picking my sound from Ableton (maybe Kontakt) or if I'm using my iPad, Garage Band or Groovebox.

My main suggestion is this: Consider your target users. The way I imagine it, you have two groups of potential users: 

• Beginners who want to an instrument that makes music more accessible. Orba is already poised to meet these users with current design. To better serve this market, you need much more education, tutorials etc. I suggest building out tutorial content further but also partnering to point your beginner users toward more music education resources. ("Want to dive deeper into music production and become an Advanced Orba user? Check out our partners and get the Orba owner discount....etc.") If beginner users want to develop beyond playing on the Orba, they need education in music production and some music theory. They do need not an Orba app. 
  
• Users who know what the acronym DAW means. What do we want out of Orba? We want something small to carry around like a music fidget spinner that we can noodle around with to generate ideas. The minute an idea starts to take shape, we're plugging in to our DAW of choice, choosing or shaping the sounds we actually want to hear and using the Orba to get our MIDI data into our DAW. You've already made this experience pretty seamless and I was able to get my idea into Ableton in less than 5 minutes to start shaping it. Great work here. As advanced users, your goal with us could be to delay the amount of time it takes us to reach for the DAW. Give us the features requested above so we spend more time on Orba before being forced into the DAW to continue the development of our ideas.

I just unboxed my Orba in the last hour.  Messing around with it now.  Hope to share thoughts and suggestions on the forum in the future.  Let's all share experiences and learn from one another.

 Hi, when do you expect to:

1. Delever to ks backers who have funded your crap project more then a year ago?

2. Fix all the dev issues you have months after you "release" the product?

3. Stop sending bs communication and spend money on marketing instead of fixing issues?

Hi, I'm really excited that the Orba will be on it's way soon!

After looking at the User Manual, I wanted to ask if the firmware update will also be available for Linux? It would be a shame if I couldn't use my Orba! :)

Cheers, and thank-you.

@ Peter & Ben - I must indeed compliment Artiphon on that. It doesn't matter how much and for how long I complain. It does not help, but it does not go away either :-)

Hi! I ordered my Orba at the end of January. I just got it this past weekend. I had to follow the firmware update instructions pinned in the forums to get it to update the firmware and talk to the app (twice, as it failed the first time). Other than that it's been a fun little device to play with. I look forward to seeing what I can do with it.

Hi. I am the new owner of Orba, I discovered the tool only recently, I am captivated by the concept, everything still works ...

Hi! Just placed an order and should receive my Orba mid-March!

In the meantime, I did a lot of RTFM and watched your tutorials. Once thing I noticed is that right now, it doesn't seem that we're able to mute/unmute parts (I just posted a new thread as well on that topic).

Is there any chance this could be added in a future update? Maybe something like HOLD PLAY/PAUSE BUTTON + PART to mute/unmute? This would allow us to develop full songs instead of 8 bars loops...

Thanks!

Ben. I can relate. I was hoping I could at least store one preset of my choosing and noodle around on the porch when inspired or plug in earbuds when out somewhere where people might be around.  Thats what Artiphon told me and a big reason why I bought.They said I could load in my own preset sounds..As it turns out my solution for that is Roland Zenbeats. It works perfectly fine on my android phone and 2 touch screen chromebooks...and windows..you can bang out a melody on your back porch and continue developing it in your windows machine.  It also has some 'normal' sounds.  Why Orba didnt include at least one normal soundset for drums and lead escapes me...how about a regular drum kit and regular acoustic piano?  As it is, I;ll use Zenbeats..it works perfectly fine and you can loop and do more with looping than with Orba and it is self contained and you have a larger notes range. It works well w. touchscreens. Fighting Orba to work with android stuff isnt worth the effort..it wont work....their android app is useless.  I found a new Roli Lightpad block for 50 bucks and that does all kinds of stuff. It''s first gen however so it doesnt make the best pad to play on.  I hope they are able to improve Orba Gen1 to the point where it wont require us to buy a Orba Gen2 for things to work right.

@ Peter - I don't know if this reassures you, but in my experience the forum is not the weakest link of Artiphon or the Orba. I posted quite a few messages and I had a problem once. Probably hit Cancel or something.

 Hi all Just ordered My Orba. i am looking forward to playing it. got a question are there hang or tongue drum sounds for the Orba already?