Nektar Technology

[TChandler]

Hello all, this is Tim from Nektar. 

Just announcing our presence here.  I'll ask Justin to sign up to.

Regards,

Tim

[justin3am]

Hi Tim! I actually signed up the other day. I just forgot to tell you. Ha!

[JiggeryPokery]

Hi, guys, nice of you to join.

[Lizard]

Hi, guys, nice of you to join.

I concur with this prognosis.  Welcome.

[arqui]

Welcome, I'm very happy P6 User, thanks. and wanting more Re in future updates...

[virtualpt]

Nice to see you here Justin & Tim

[tiker01]

Oh hello,

Just quick question to you, Nektar guys.

Have you got access to developer versions of Reason so you can express your opinion on how the implementation of a new Reason feature can or cannot be integrated into the Panorama workflow? I think it would be really beneficial to as PH if you can have a glimpse what they are brewing. 

[TChandler]

Yes we work closely with PH to ensure up and coming updates/new releases are always compatible.

[gak]

I've had my impact for quite a while now. Integrates nicely with reason and is a much higher build quality than the novation launchkey (actually the nektar is less money ) 

[FATCheese]

I like it how we see more and more people who produce something for/to use with Reason (in any kind of way) joining this forum.

Welcome!

[tt_lab]

Hi Nektar!
The other day I hit one of the 8 pots and it broke. I am saddened. never happened to me before. Is there a way I can send it for a fix?
My P6 is less than a year old. I know there is no guaranty in this sort of things, but I want to know all the possibilities before using glue on it!
cheers

[Djstarski]

Hey Tim and Justin ,

                          welcome to our neck of the woods ,

its funny , im just about to purchase the Impact LX49 . i don`t think there is a better keyboard in that price range . Keep up the good work guys .
 

[C//AZM]

Hi and Welcome. I've got one ,possibly two P6s on my next buy list! Finally had the chance to test drive one for a week and I love it!

[EnochLight]

Hi Nektar!
The other day I hit one of the 8 pots and it broke. I am saddened. never happened to me before. Is there a way I can send it for a fix?
My P6 is less than a year old. I know there is no guaranty in this sort of things, but I want to know all the possibilities before using glue on it!
cheers

Hi there,

I would submit a tech support request through your Nektar account and see if they can arrange for a repair.  

[tt_lab]

Hey Enoch thanx for the reply...I guess I'm gonna do that.
Cheers

[prndrsn]

I was going to sign up eventually, but seeing this thread is what made me get my thumb out and do it.


I bought a Panorama P4 a couple of weeks ago and I love it. Love, love, love it, I can't imagine using any other controller (except the other Panorama versions) and I recommend every Reason user I know to get one, and any other DAW user to check them out if the integration with other DAWs is even half as good.

Because I love it so much on the whole, I'd like to point out the few weaknesses it does have in the name of fairness to any prospective buyer, and make a couple of requests/wishes. If this list seems long, keep in mind that most things are very very minor, and for every negative there are at least ten major positives. I honestly could go on for hours about all the features and how much I love them. Some of these issues might not matter at all for everyone either.


Build quality/design features

Build quality is over all very very nice, but there are a few things that aren't perfect. Neither are they necessarily worse than competing products in the same price range.

• The keys are a bit loud, particularly on release. I'm not a keyboard player so it's fine by me, but to anyone who is serious about playing the keyboard I recommend a P1 and a fancier keyboard rather than the P4/P6.
• The silver hat on the motorized fader is ugly and cheap looking/feeling and seems out of place design-wise. However, this comes down to subjective taste I suppose.
• The faders could be a little bit sturdier. Especially the motorized fader is a bit wobbly-feeling. Knobs are very solid with 0 wiggle, but somehow they don't instill me with confidence in their longevity. I know this is very vague and it's hard to describe, there's just something in the way they feel when turning them that makes me think that one day, maybe years from now, they will be the first thing to stop responding. It might just be because they have somewhat low resistance that they feel like that to me though.
• Pads could be a little bit more sensitive in my opinion. They're still fine for me as I mostly use them to test sounds. I have no idea how they compare to other popular pad controllers however, maybe they're actually as good as, or better than, average.
• It's slightly inconvenient to have 12 pads when KONG has 16. The top row is only one button press away however, and personally I'm not very bothered by it. Also I'm not sure the trade-off of having smaller pads would have been worth it anyway. It's something to keep in mind for any prospective buyer who does a lot of live drumming though.
• The asymmetric layout of the eight knobs is inconvenient and counter-intuitive. If I'm not looking, I constantly mistake the menu knob for the first knob of row two. I think it would have been better design to move the top row to the right, aligning it with the bottom row. It would have made the separation from the menu knob clearer and made it more intuitive. If I'm not looking and I move my hand from a knob on one row to one on the other, I have to remember if they're offset to the left or right relative to the other to know which knob I end up at.
• Black matte knobs and buttons on a black front plate are very difficult to see in the dark. Backlights (not too bright and ideally toggleable) would have been nice.
• MIDI through might have been nice/useful. I currently have no need for it myself however so it doesn't bother me.
• I have had situations where the motorized fader stopped autoadjusting until I restarted the Panorama. I can't reliably reproduce this however, and it's possible it was due to something I did with tracks or channels that caused a conflict.

 
Integration issues

It's possible that some of these issues are due to me not having figured out the proper way to do it, and that some simply can't be done any better due to constraints within Reason. Any issues in this section are completely minor.

• Mixer bus channels are awkward to deal with. Trying to control/toggle send effects on a bus channel seems to either have no effect, or affect the wrong channel. I don't think the level slider works on bus channels either, but I don't remember for sure. This might apply to the other mixer controls on the bus channel too, I haven't tested. Regular channels work just fine.
• I thought there was something else, but now I can't remember.

Miscellaneous

• As much as I love the controller, I am sad to say I absolutely hate the site. I'm sorry, but it's atrocious and completely un-navigable. I spent a good time trying to find the user manual (not the quick start guide) before I gave up and eventually found it on a third party site. Come on, that's not acceptable. The on-site documentation is scattered and inadequate. The pdf manual was mostly good, but I still had some questions after reading it. I don't remember off the top of my head what was missing though.
• Related to the site, there were way too many hoops to jump through with registration and the various steps just to get started. Why is access to downloads restricted to registered users? I know why its desirable for you as a company to have customers registered, but no one likes to be forced.

 
Feature requests/wishlist

Some of these may not be possible for, well... Reason reasons.

• Although the standard mappings have the virtual on-screen knobs labeled to correspond to their respective parameters, I wish non-standard ones (like combinator knobs/buttons and send effects) could fetch the label from the Reason label. I suspect the only reason this isn't already in is that it can't be done. However, maybe it is possible to let the user rename them? For input, letters could be cycled through with the menu knob and entered with a button. This would be particularly useful for internal mode.
• Bass Station II internal mode preset would be convenient.
• Option to have instrument mode selection follow device, not track. Again, this might not be possible. The trick of adding the keyboard as a separate generic MIDI controller and temporarily lock instrument mode to a device when needed is a good workaround, but following mouse selection would be nicer. I know I could make a sequencer track for any device, but that becomes very very messy. To be honest, this is probably something that really should be implemented on the Reason end and not by you.
• Related or an alternative to the above, maybe it's possible to make it so that if a selected track is a combinator, there's the option to cycle through the contained devices?
• Ability to show the display on a tablet. The integrated display is bright and clear and adequate, but if I could view it on a larger screen it would be easier and more ergonomic. If you implement this, please, please don't make it iOS only. Android users make music too. Tablet support might even open up for even more awesome integration possibilities. Touch editing of the Thor formant filter comes to mind. A little clip-on stand would be a nice bonus feature too.
• Ability to adjust knob sensitivity. I sometimes feel they are a little bit too sensitive when doing fine adjustment of parameters, and sometimes not sensitive enough if I want to do live mixing. I mix dub style sometimes with very quick extreme adjustments of send effects. Although to be honest, I should probably just get a BCR2000 for live mixing really.

 
I think that's it. Again, the list looks kind of long, but it's mostly just minor things that pale in comparison to all the upsides. I realize I'm repeating myself and sound like a suck-up, but the Panorama is legitimately the best purchase i have made in a long, long time and I can't remember the last time I was so enthusiastic about something.

[nscerri]

Panorama P6 is one of the best purchases I ever made. It is not perfect but it is miles ahead compared to other MIDI Controllers. It is like having 4 MIDI controllers in one (when connected to a DAW that deeply integrates with it) and for live performances, the looper feature is a killer.

Keep up the good work, maybe it would be nice to include a 76 key version

[gak]

I was going to sign up eventually, but seeing this thread is what made me get my thumb out and do it.


I bought a Panorama P4 a couple of weeks ago and I love it. Love, love, love it, I can't imagine using any other controller (except the other Panorama versions) and I recommend every Reason user I know to get one, and any other DAW user to check them out if the integration with other DAWs is even half as good.

Because I love it so much on the whole, I'd like to point out the few weaknesses it does have in the name of fairness to any prospective buyer, and make a couple of requests/wishes. If this list seems long, keep in mind that most things are very very minor, and for every negative there are at least ten major positives. I honestly could go on for hours about all the features and how much I love them. Some of these issues might not matter at all for everyone either.


Build quality/design features

Build quality is over all very very nice, but there are a few things that aren't perfect. Neither are they necessarily worse than competing products in the same price range.

• The keys are a bit loud, particularly on release. I'm not a keyboard player so it's fine by me, but to anyone who is serious about playing the keyboard I recommend a P1 and a fancier keyboard rather than the P4/P6.
• The silver hat on the motorized fader is ugly and cheap looking/feeling and seems out of place design-wise. However, this comes down to subjective taste I suppose.
• The faders could be a little bit sturdier. Especially the motorized fader is a bit wobbly-feeling. Knobs are very solid with 0 wiggle, but somehow they don't instill me with confidence in their longevity. I know this is very vague and it's hard to describe, there's just something in the way they feel when turning them that makes me think that one day, maybe years from now, they will be the first thing to stop responding. It might just be because they have somewhat low resistance that they feel like that to me though.
• Pads could be a little bit more sensitive in my opinion. They're still fine for me as I mostly use them to test sounds. I have no idea how they compare to other popular pad controllers however, maybe they're actually as good as, or better than, average.
• It's slightly inconvenient to have 12 pads when KONG has 16. The top row is only one button press away however, and personally I'm not very bothered by it. Also I'm not sure the trade-off of having smaller pads would have been worth it anyway. It's something to keep in mind for any prospective buyer who does a lot of live drumming though.
• The asymmetric layout of the eight knobs is inconvenient and counter-intuitive. If I'm not looking, I constantly mistake the menu knob for the first knob of row two. I think it would have been better design to move the top row to the right, aligning it with the bottom row. It would have made the separation from the menu knob clearer and made it more intuitive. If I'm not looking and I move my hand from a knob on one row to one on the other, I have to remember if they're offset to the left or right relative to the other to know which knob I end up at.
• Black matte knobs and buttons on a black front plate are very difficult to see in the dark. Backlights (not too bright and ideally toggleable) would have been nice.
• MIDI through might have been nice/useful. I currently have no need for it myself however so it doesn't bother me.
• I have had situations where the motorized fader stopped autoadjusting until I restarted the Panorama. I can't reliably reproduce this however, and it's possible it was due to something I did with tracks or channels that caused a conflict.

 
Integration issues

It's possible that some of these issues are due to me not having figured out the proper way to do it, and that some simply can't be done any better due to constraints within Reason. Any issues in this section are completely minor.

• Mixer bus channels are awkward to deal with. Trying to control/toggle send effects on a bus channel seems to either have no effect, or affect the wrong channel. I don't think the level slider works on bus channels either, but I don't remember for sure. This might apply to the other mixer controls on the bus channel too, I haven't tested. Regular channels work just fine.
• I thought there was something else, but now I can't remember.

Miscellaneous

• As much as I love the controller, I am sad to say I absolutely hate the site. I'm sorry, but it's atrocious and completely un-navigable. I spent a good time trying to find the user manual (not the quick start guide) before I gave up and eventually found it on a third party site. Come on, that's not acceptable. The on-site documentation is scattered and inadequate. The pdf manual was mostly good, but I still had some questions after reading it. I don't remember off the top of my head what was missing though.
• Related to the site, there were way too many hoops to jump through with registration and the various steps just to get started. Why is access to downloads restricted to registered users? I know why its desirable for you as a company to have customers registered, but no one likes to be forced.

 
Feature requests/wishlist

Some of these may not be possible for, well... Reason reasons.

• Although the standard mappings have the virtual on-screen knobs labeled to correspond to their respective parameters, I wish non-standard ones (like combinator knobs/buttons and send effects) could fetch the label from the Reason label. I suspect the only reason this isn't already in is that it can't be done. However, maybe it is possible to let the user rename them? For input, letters could be cycled through with the menu knob and entered with a button. This would be particularly useful for internal mode.
• Bass Station II internal mode preset would be convenient.
• Option to have instrument mode selection follow device, not track. Again, this might not be possible. The trick of adding the keyboard as a separate generic MIDI controller and temporarily lock instrument mode to a device when needed is a good workaround, but following mouse selection would be nicer. I know I could make a sequencer track for any device, but that becomes very very messy. To be honest, this is probably something that really should be implemented on the Reason end and not by you.
• Related or an alternative to the above, maybe it's possible to make it so that if a selected track is a combinator, there's the option to cycle through the contained devices?
• Ability to show the display on a tablet. The integrated display is bright and clear and adequate, but if I could view it on a larger screen it would be easier and more ergonomic. If you implement this, please, please don't make it iOS only. Android users make music too. Tablet support might even open up for even more awesome integration possibilities. Touch editing of the Thor formant filter comes to mind. A little clip-on stand would be a nice bonus feature too.
• Ability to adjust knob sensitivity. I sometimes feel they are a little bit too sensitive when doing fine adjustment of parameters, and sometimes not sensitive enough if I want to do live mixing. I mix dub style sometimes with very quick extreme adjustments of send effects. Although to be honest, I should probably just get a BCR2000 for live mixing really.

 
I think that's it. Again, the list looks kind of long, but it's mostly just minor things that pale in comparison to all the upsides. I realize I'm repeating myself and sound like a suck-up, but the Panorama is legitimately the best purchase i have made in a long, long time and I can't remember the last time I was so enthusiastic about something.

a) the unfortunate truth is midi controllers are not built as well as certain workstations. I've had a million of them, they all have flaws. I'm sure you understand this, but felt the need to say.

b) noisy keys: You are not the first person to point that out. See "a". Though I don't think I've ever had a controller that isn't noisy, I agree that even on my impact it's a bit much.

c) The pads on the impact are "ok" but I don't like the default velocity curve for them. I'm sure it's easier on the panorama, but on mine it's a pain to change it. I guess I could make a preset (:redneck: ) 

[EnochLight]

I was going to sign up eventually, but seeing this thread is what made me get my thumb out and do it.


I bought a Panorama P4 a couple of weeks ago and I love it. Love, love, love it, I can't imagine using any other controller (except the other Panorama versions) and I recommend every Reason user I know to get one, and any other DAW user to check them out if the integration with other DAWs is even half as good.

Because I love it so much on the whole, I'd like to point out the few weaknesses it does have in the name of fairness to any prospective buyer, and make a couple of requests/wishes. If this list seems long, keep in mind that most things are very very minor, and for every negative there are at least ten major positives. I honestly could go on for hours about all the features and how much I love them. Some of these issues might not matter at all for everyone either.


Build quality/design features

Build quality is over all very very nice, but there are a few things that aren't perfect. Neither are they necessarily worse than competing products in the same price range.

• The keys are a bit loud, particularly on release. I'm not a keyboard player so it's fine by me, but to anyone who is serious about playing the keyboard I recommend a P1 and a fancier keyboard rather than the P4/P6.
• The silver hat on the motorized fader is ugly and cheap looking/feeling and seems out of place design-wise. However, this comes down to subjective taste I suppose.
• The faders could be a little bit sturdier. Especially the motorized fader is a bit wobbly-feeling. Knobs are very solid with 0 wiggle, but somehow they don't instill me with confidence in their longevity. I know this is very vague and it's hard to describe, there's just something in the way they feel when turning them that makes me think that one day, maybe years from now, they will be the first thing to stop responding. It might just be because they have somewhat low resistance that they feel like that to me though.
• Pads could be a little bit more sensitive in my opinion. They're still fine for me as I mostly use them to test sounds. I have no idea how they compare to other popular pad controllers however, maybe they're actually as good as, or better than, average.
• It's slightly inconvenient to have 12 pads when KONG has 16. The top row is only one button press away however, and personally I'm not very bothered by it. Also I'm not sure the trade-off of having smaller pads would have been worth it anyway. It's something to keep in mind for any prospective buyer who does a lot of live drumming though.
• The asymmetric layout of the eight knobs is inconvenient and counter-intuitive. If I'm not looking, I constantly mistake the menu knob for the first knob of row two. I think it would have been better design to move the top row to the right, aligning it with the bottom row. It would have made the separation from the menu knob clearer and made it more intuitive. If I'm not looking and I move my hand from a knob on one row to one on the other, I have to remember if they're offset to the left or right relative to the other to know which knob I end up at.
• Black matte knobs and buttons on a black front plate are very difficult to see in the dark. Backlights (not too bright and ideally toggleable) would have been nice.
• MIDI through might have been nice/useful. I currently have no need for it myself however so it doesn't bother me.
• I have had situations where the motorized fader stopped autoadjusting until I restarted the Panorama. I can't reliably reproduce this however, and it's possible it was due to something I did with tracks or channels that caused a conflict.

 
Integration issues

It's possible that some of these issues are due to me not having figured out the proper way to do it, and that some simply can't be done any better due to constraints within Reason. Any issues in this section are completely minor.

• Mixer bus channels are awkward to deal with. Trying to control/toggle send effects on a bus channel seems to either have no effect, or affect the wrong channel. I don't think the level slider works on bus channels either, but I don't remember for sure. This might apply to the other mixer controls on the bus channel too, I haven't tested. Regular channels work just fine.
• I thought there was something else, but now I can't remember.

Miscellaneous

• As much as I love the controller, I am sad to say I absolutely hate the site. I'm sorry, but it's atrocious and completely un-navigable. I spent a good time trying to find the user manual (not the quick start guide) before I gave up and eventually found it on a third party site. Come on, that's not acceptable. The on-site documentation is scattered and inadequate. The pdf manual was mostly good, but I still had some questions after reading it. I don't remember off the top of my head what was missing though.
• Related to the site, there were way too many hoops to jump through with registration and the various steps just to get started. Why is access to downloads restricted to registered users? I know why its desirable for you as a company to have customers registered, but no one likes to be forced.

 
Feature requests/wishlist

Some of these may not be possible for, well... Reason reasons.

• Although the standard mappings have the virtual on-screen knobs labeled to correspond to their respective parameters, I wish non-standard ones (like combinator knobs/buttons and send effects) could fetch the label from the Reason label. I suspect the only reason this isn't already in is that it can't be done. However, maybe it is possible to let the user rename them? For input, letters could be cycled through with the menu knob and entered with a button. This would be particularly useful for internal mode.
• Bass Station II internal mode preset would be convenient.
• Option to have instrument mode selection follow device, not track. Again, this might not be possible. The trick of adding the keyboard as a separate generic MIDI controller and temporarily lock instrument mode to a device when needed is a good workaround, but following mouse selection would be nicer. I know I could make a sequencer track for any device, but that becomes very very messy. To be honest, this is probably something that really should be implemented on the Reason end and not by you.
• Related or an alternative to the above, maybe it's possible to make it so that if a selected track is a combinator, there's the option to cycle through the contained devices?
• Ability to show the display on a tablet. The integrated display is bright and clear and adequate, but if I could view it on a larger screen it would be easier and more ergonomic. If you implement this, please, please don't make it iOS only. Android users make music too. Tablet support might even open up for even more awesome integration possibilities. Touch editing of the Thor formant filter comes to mind. A little clip-on stand would be a nice bonus feature too.
• Ability to adjust knob sensitivity. I sometimes feel they are a little bit too sensitive when doing fine adjustment of parameters, and sometimes not sensitive enough if I want to do live mixing. I mix dub style sometimes with very quick extreme adjustments of send effects. Although to be honest, I should probably just get a BCR2000 for live mixing really.

 
I think that's it. Again, the list looks kind of long, but it's mostly just minor things that pale in comparison to all the upsides. I realize I'm repeating myself and sound like a suck-up, but the Panorama is legitimately the best purchase i have made in a long, long time and I can't remember the last time I was so enthusiastic about something.

I agree with pretty much everything here, especially the website - ugh!  Thanks for chiming in.

[prndrsn]

a) the unfortunate truth is midi controllers are not built as well as certain workstations. I've had a million of them, they all have flaws. I'm sure you understand this, but felt the need to say.
 

Absolutely, most of these things are just the small things that make the difference between "fantastic" and "perfect". They're also completely acceptable for the price bracket and not necessarily any worse than competing products. Of all the things I pointed out, nothing is any worse than I expected except the hat of the motorized fader (fader itself is great though). The motorized fader is a pretty flashy feature and it's a shame the hat of it is the single worst thing about the controller in terms of build quality (and looks, but that is subjective).

There are two main reasons for why I think it's important to point out these kinds of things even when they're minor:

1. The Panoramas are justifiably very very hyped, and I think it's important in such a case to not make something out to be completely perfect. For some users, the keyboard and/or pads are for sure very very important, and for someone like that I think it's fair to let them know that the P1 plus a separate high end keyboard/drum pad controller is probably the ideal solution for them rather than the all-in-one solutions of the P4/6.
2. Developers need to know what could be improved for a possible future MKII. But also to what extent users are willing to pay more for them. For me it's not very much, I'd rather take the P4 as it is now than pay $100-150 more and have these things improved. Maybe $50.

[tiker01]

So how those of you own a Panorama P1/4/6 how have you been able to incorporate Revert? Is Nektar Tech. going to update the firmware of their controllers to support Revert?

[EnochLight]

So how those of you own a Panorama P1/4/6 how have you been able to incorporate Revert? Is Nektar Tech. going to update the firmware of their controllers to support Revert?

Currently, the new Revert feature of Reason 8.2 does not have a keyboard shortcut and it is not remotable, so unfortunately Nektar can't do anything with it at this point - firmware or otherwise.  That said, I could be mistaken.  Tim?

[EnochLight]

Yes we work closely with PH to ensure up and coming updates/new releases are always compatible.

Hey Tim,

Have you had any reports of Reason 8.2 and the Panorama series (either P4 or P6 at least) losing communication with Reason if left sitting for a time?  I'm getting ready to post a bug report through my Nektar account, but I think this is happening to my setup.

If I walk away and leave it sitting for several hours, my P4 is losing communication and I have to turn it off/on to kick start it again.  All other MIDI controllers are working fine.

*UPDATE: turns out I have a finicky USB port on my motherboard. Tried a new powered PCI-e USB 2.0 card and things are back to normal.

[Emian]

good to see Nektar is here represented.
 
My old MIDI-keyboard (edirol PCR-30) died on me, & i was lookin' for a (affordable) alternative.
i'll most likely buy the Impact LX 49 next week, so if any other user wants to share his/her experiences with the Impact LX series i'd appreciate.
 
i know the Panorama's are the go-to for many users, but that was a bit above my price range....

[iramrezso]

• Wish the mixer channel selection on the device would also change the selected strip accordingly in Reason and vice versa. Reason should always be the reference of where I am at, instead of just trying to find out which strip I'm currently editing from ten characters on the device's screen. This way I often change different channel settings than that I want.

• Wish there was an option of that selecting a device in Rack view would also lock the Panorama to that device.

These features would also require changes in Reason, too, I guess, however.