Mandala Drum Forums

I received my Mandala a few weeks ago but am only just now finding the time to properly explore it. Really excited to spend some time with it now and integrate it in to my existing setup, which is based around Ableton Live. So far the feel and responsiveness seems amazing and really like a totally unique instrument with nothing else like it on the market. I perviously owned a BopPad which should have had some of the same potential but the build quality was terrible and I had 3 of them fail on me so had to abandon them.

I did have some initial teething issues with the Mandala zones not being set up correctly and had to make an adjustment with the screw underneath. After the initial adjustment it had drifted again when I reconnected it the next day so I had to readjust but it seems to have settled now. Hopefully this is just something to do with it being a brand new unit.

The only other issue I've had is that when I squeeze the rim triggers, if I push too far they end up touching the main surface of the pad which triggers the MIDI note in Zone 4. I've tried increasing the threshold on the Surface Zones to see if this prevents that but it still happens, even at maximum threshold. Wondering if the Synesthia team have any thoughts on this? I know the answer is don't squeeze so hard, but in a live situation I can easily imagine this happening in the moment....

I'll be sharing some videos and thoughts soon but in the meantime a couple of tips for anyone using the Mandala Drum with Ableton Live would be:

- Use the Mandala in MPE mode and use Ableton's MPE Control device to control the threshold at which the pressure has an effect (see attached image).
- Also use the Expression Control device to map pressure and slide to parameters in Ableton Live.

Thank you for sharing the Ableton Live tips above!

Regarding rim pressure, make sure to squeeze the rim vertically and not push it toward the center of the pad. The rim should be compressed straight down by your applied pressure. The rim material can be malleable enough to reach the outer edge of surface zone z4 if it is pressed toward the center of the pad instead of straight down.

Something to keep in mind regarding surface zone boundaries is that when you strike the surface very hard you are distorting a greater area than a soft hit which means that a very hard surface strike near the boundary of a surface zone is actually going to trigger the inner part of the adjacent outer zone as opposed to the outer part of the intended inner zone. The Center Calibration routine is a way for you to dial in a feel that is best for your playing style.

Another note regarding Center Calibration is that not all USB ports are created equal, including multiple ports on the same machine, and slight USB voltage differences from port to port may call for a V3 to be calibrated specifically for a particular port. This is rarely the case but it helps to be aware of the possibility.