Not a rant, genuine request for information. The issues with the firmware and the hardware (storage space) are real and deserve a response from the UDO team. I’m not mad at anyone, but “they’re working on it” is a pretty lax standard.
Finished at 1.2 with pervasive bugs is a problem, but being in beta with a $3K piece of hardware for multiple years also is.
Fully agreed - it’s a wonderful synth. Feels great, sounds fantastic. And that doesn’t paint over the challenges people have. I bought the synth “for what it does,” not “for what it might do,” but the problem is that it often doesn’t appropriately do what it says it does. Many of these issues take a while to find.
What bugs have you found that are a problem. Are they known issues? I don’t seem to have any problems here. Maybe I do and I don’t notice them just the way I use it.
Did you try the editor for the patch storage issues? You should have known it was only capable of holding 128 patches when you bought it I assume. I use a PC and don’t have any problems, yes the process isn’t as straight forward as Cobalt 8 with the app but it is lightyears ahead of Prophet 6 / OB-6 / Trigon 6 with the midi ox method - that is genuinely awful, in many ways. Super 6 is a joy next to that and importantly it won’t ever expire since it is like a HDD mounted, not an app.
I am on the latest firmware, and still, sometimes my machine fails to play a sound on boot. I have the (documented) LFO random bug (where LFO steps through multiple voltages despite being on “play once” mode), I get weird intermittent MIDI gremlins.
I haven’t tried the editor yet. If you’re on a PC, you do not have the issues Mac users have. The storage is minuscule on the Super 6. Macs write tiny system files to directories they alter. This cannot be disabled through the Mac finder. If you have all 128 patches, plus a full cohort of waveshapes and sequences, you literally cannot use the computer to transfer everything at once. Frequently, I have to reboot the Super 6 or run OnyX on the Super 6 drive three times to fully refresh everything.
The issue is not that the patch transfer is problematic, it’s that there is literally so little storage space on the Super 6 that transferring data to it from a Mac is a comically annoying process.
I have lots of synths, this is literally the only one with this issue. I don’t mind using Sysex Librarian (which is akin to MIDI Ox) for those that want sysex dumps. I mind that the synth literally lacks the storage space to be used in an expected manner with an extremely common operating system that is extra-prevalent among musicians.
If a PC is fine and only Mac throws up problems hopefully it can be fixed. I think you may need to delete then F5 refresh to make the space? I’m sure I read somewhere Mac hoards trash files that uses up the precious space. Seems like synth/computer needs to communicate better, the synth has enough memory for 128 patches.
The Super 6 has only memory for the patches, waves, sequences, and firmware, with no room to spare. This is likely not fixable without the creation of a small loader script that scrubs the files the Mac creates as they’re written.
This would easily be solved by 1) having just a tiny bit more storage on the Super 6 or 2) having a dead simple loader script that scrubs Mac files as they’re written to avoid clutter.
Deleting as you’re saying does not work. There are three ways to solve the problem as it stands. 1) Write some data, restart the Super 6, rinse and repeat until complete. 2) Write some data, use OnyX to scrub the files. 3) Write some data, input via command line to clear out the junk.
It is just silly that in 202X there is so little storage on this device.
I’m a new user. I received the Super 6 Desktop last Wednesday, and I’m starting to be discouraged by what I see when it comes to bugs and how they aren’t addressed (not even as announcement that they’re being worked on). As it stands right now, I’m probably going to return the synth before my 30 day trial period is up.
For example, there’s problems (acknowledged by the developers) with modulating the VCA gain, and this hasn’t been fixed in over half a year. Furthermore, the expected MPE behavior, as stated in the manual, does not work, again something that hasn’t been addressed in over half a year. (I know that it might be a bit more complicated, with the manual simply stating future behavior that hasn’t been implemented yet, but if something is in the manual and it doesn’t work, I’m going to count it as a bug. You can’t expect the end user to browse online forums to find out via second hand information what in the manual just are wishes rather than actual implemented behavior.)
On a side note, I really think that patches need to change instantly. Granted, this is not a bug, just something that I would expect to be the case for a synth to work in my setup.
Since the firmware isn’t open sourced, there’s nothing I can do about this rather than wait, and since I don’t see any strong, comforting statements by the developer team anywhere (remember, I’m a new buyer so I don’t know the history), I don’t feel confident that they ever will be fixed. Again, the team might be the greatest, most competent guys ever who works on these things constantly, but to me, they’re more like Schrödinger’s developers.
In my opinion, it doesn’t look very good/professional, and I share OP’s concerns. At the same time, I would love for my concerns to be unfounded and for the synth to turn into the absolute dream synth that it has the potential to be
Developing the Super 6 and helping our customers is my full time occupation. If I do not respond directly here, it is not because I am not busy behind the scenes.
The nature of such a complex instrument is that there are very many use cases. We want the instrument to perform for everyone, in all cases, and this takes experience and feedback from the community of skilled users like yourselves.
Just copying our internal meeting minutes from time ago showing what I am currently working on for 0,9 for reference. The release number is simply a number.
Arp sequencer MIDI note out global setting should be non-volatile
Improve velocity response (widen range, esp. at the lower end: when a key is pressed as softly as possible, the output level should be next to nothing; currently it seems as if it’s still at 25%)
Allow for full mod impact on VCA LEVEL Task Mike with adding to UbugTrack fleshing out some functionality examples for this and present findings. Examples of use cases - using an expression pedal for full volume manipulation; a Sax player would like to route via midi through their wind controller the VCA level. Allowing them more expression with oscillator textures and to be more expressive than just controlling the filter cut off.
Enable desktop delay LED. Will be implemented into delay Freeze
Enable MANUAL CC# button send.
Reduce patch file size without structure change for more disk free space for Mac users with a full disk. Secondary benefit faster loading.
Frequent and Popular Feature Requests
Round robin voice assignment
Add MIX to mod destinations
SHIFT + keytrack toggle switch = ENV 2 keytrack
Sharpen the edges of LFO 1 waveforms, esp. square and random
Make transpose toggle switch work with local off (essential for Super 6 as a MIDI controller)
Allow for MPE Y CC# 74 not to be hardwired to filter cutoff
Add a ‘deadzone’ to DDS2 Tune Potentiometer to ensure the center marking is always in-tune with DDS1. Warp range around 0 detune for easier programming of subtle detune settings
I’d like to think you’re also considering shift and tune to give DDS2 a proper fine tune option. I realise the options mentioned will help a little but my single biggest issue for the last year has been lack of fine tune - due to the combination of coarse and fine tune in a single control. Pretty please?
Thank you so much for posting this update - this is really helpful. Obviously, I have no way of knowing how UDO’s internal workings function, but I’d suggest that sharing this kind of update regularly (once a month or something, but again, no way for me to know how often makes sense on your internal schedule) would go a long way toward turning the community of Super 6 owners into your most valuable marketing asset.
It’s a brilliant sounding instrument, and my willingness to recommend it to others unreservedly rises with improvements made to the firmware, but also with communication about it.
There are a number of schemes of approaching this, and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. Managing expectations it’s unlikely to make it into the next release but some intelligent way of warping control scales from where the pot was left might improve ability for patch deconstruction/editing. There a limit with fixed pots to what we can do of course! The best implementation of control warping I’ve ever seen is on old Tektronix analog oscilloscopes (model TDS2464 I think). These last generation analog test instruments had fixed pots but had setup recall and somehow managed to make them feel like endless encoders that would incrementally adjust despite their setting point… I still have one and will get it back out to play with …
Of course, I imagined that when you go through the same saved value, it would start to change, but the Tektronix thing is interesting… thank you very much!
I’ve stopped counting how many times I had to turn my Super 6 Desktop off and on again to get it to work again.
This time, it was the TEMPO knob that no longer responded (until I “powercycled” my Super 6) !
Every time I turn it on to play, I wonder what problem will happen. Most of my problems are random. It’s difficult to open a ticket, because I don’t know how to reproduce them. But, for a device that costs €2,220, I don’t find it serious at all to show so many issues.
Should we give the future version of firmware 0.90 a chance or sell it now, I seriously ask myself this question, after less than 4 weeks with my brand new Super 6 Desktop .
Maybe the Super 6 Keyboard is more stable because it has less communication with others MIDI devices ? I don’t know.
Nevertheless, I do not recommend it to anyone, even if it sounds superb.
Hi @Denony, assuming you have already been in contact with UDO support, but if not, I recommend connecting with them by sending an email to support@udo-audio.com. Their team is very responsive and will be committed to getting you taken care of.
In terms of your setup, would you mind sharing a bit more? Using it with a DAW? Midi in? Are you using another device’s clock? Wondering if you can attempt to isolate when issues occur and when they do not? Let us know.
I totally agree. I own a number of Elektron devices that I really like, but my biggest gripe with Elektron as a company is that they’re so incredibly secretive. Seeing internal meeting posts like these show up on the Elektronauts forum would be totally unheard of. I realise that you don’t want to promise a lot of things or reveal features that competitors can steal, but there’s a middle ground between that and not saying anything at all regarding future directions.
From what I’ve seen of UDO Audio, they seem to be quite open regarding what they work on, if you dig around for it on the forum, but I would love for them to be even more structured in this openness. For example, the developers of Microsoft Flight Simulator make regular blog posts in their forum, talking about what they currently are working on.
Now, if UDO audio were to do this, I don’t think it would have to be especially complicated or time consuming. Simply posting some meeting notes like was done above would go a really long way towards convincing users like me that I haven’t bought into vaporware. In fact, that post alone by @udo-audio probably made the difference between me keeping and me returning my Super 6 desktop unit that I recently bought (and judging from the number of likes on the post, it seems like a lot of other people really liked it as well).
I made a suggestion here to start to use the Announcement category of this forum more regularly and consistently.
I use my Super 6 Desktop (firware 0.53) with an Arturia Keystep 37 (firmware 1.1.6) or a MPC One (firmware 2.10.2). Not both MPC One (named MPC1 below) or KeyStep 37 (named KS37 below) are connected to the Super 6 Desktop (named S6D below) at the same time. I use MIDI DIN olny (no USB).
S6D TEMPO knob suddenly stopped to respond, until powercycle [random issue]
S6D does not synchronise to MPC1 clock (or does not understand MPC1 clock?) [reproducible issue] But this issue does not exist with my others synths and same MPC1 settings (Roland Boutique synths).
Sometime S6D resets to the first preset (not sure it is always the first one) when I press “Play” on MPC1. [random issue]
Only power cycle resolve the issues. I tried the reset procedure (hold MANUAL for 5 secondes and wait for auto-calibration complete), but it does not solve the problems.
My S6D is brand new (4 weeks old).
It’s so frustrating not being able to say “I’m going to enjoy playing with my S6D”, but rather wondering “What’s the problem with my S6D this time ?..”.
When do you plan to release this new firmware ?
Most of my problems are random. It’s difficult to open a ticket, because I don’t know how to reproduce them.
