New Orba Players Welcome! : Artiphon

Adam McHeffey

started a topic over 4 years ago

Hi there and welcome to the new Orba forum!

Please introduce yourself, and let us know what you think. We’re eager to hear your thoughts.

If you come upon an issue, the fastest way to find a solution is by contacting support@artiphon.com. Though we do our best to always respond, your post in this forum could get lost in the more high-volume threads.

You can also feel free to start a new forum thread if you have an interesting discussion point. It could be about anything – the sounds, the industrial design, the app as it continues to be developed, or anything else!

Rock and roll,

Adam from Artiphon

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Steven L

said over 4 years ago

Yeah if they were all aligned the same way they’d have to go through the pads (probably would mess with sensors) or be in different places. I think it looks/works fine as is personally.

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Charles P

said over 4 years ago

lloyd haber Can you provide a link to the app on the google play store that you're talking about? When I search for orba and artiphon the results do not contain anything related to this device.

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Charles P

said over 4 years ago

I've tried the different presets with the windows app and found that many of the lead sounds are inaudible when you have the drums, bass, and chords playing on loops. Did I miss a way to adjust the volume for a single instrument?

I also get a lot of static/noise, sounds like extremely overdriven speakers, when multiple instruments are playing at once.

Also the windows app UI doesn't make much sense. The play button doesn't do anything. I cannot get a song to save from the orba to the PC and back onto the Orba. I cannot see what data is contained in a song, loading them just results in the orba doing nothing when I press play. So the saved song is empty? Who knows.

You should be able to hear the presets form the app without having to load them into the orba.

You should also be able to load a preset for all four instruments at once if you want to.

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lloyd haber

said over 4 years ago

Oh, you’ve found it? There is no link, it just downloads onto the phone. Yea, everything you said above I mostly agree with. I discovered using it as a midi controller and I’m having a ball!!

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Brandon Mahal

said over 4 years ago

I've messed with the available presets that you guys have for Orba and did a hard reset on the device afterwards with a firmware restore. After that my ORBA has been acting weird lately, looping isn't functional anymore it has a tendency to reset after a period of time, the noise on the shaker is very distorted, it's giving off a ver solder smell from the speakers at the bottom and not sure if that's normal??

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Charles P

said over 4 years ago

"There is no link, it just downloads onto the phone."
There's some context missing here. What downloads onto the phone? By what means and after what other events? Via the play store? If the app is on the play store, you could search it on the play store and provide a link to it. Here, if you search for "orba" under apps:

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=orba&c=apps

The results look like the attached image. Can you point out which one of these is the app you're talking about?

orba app sto...

(257 KB)

Nick Lowe

said over 4 years ago

I think Lloyd is talking about the beta – you won't find it in the Play store, so need to sign up in order for it to install.

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lloyd haber

said over 4 years ago

I just went to the App Store on my iPhone and typed in Orba and it came up. Orba by Artiphon.

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Charles P

said over 4 years ago

The question was, "when will the Orba app be available in the Google Play store?"

The Apple App Store is not the Google Play Store.

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Sergey Moraru

said over 4 years ago

No?! Why?!

JK

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Albert B.

said over 4 years ago

Hey everyone, i also finally recieved my orba and played with it over the weekend, i was able to make some real cool tunes. messed around with few presets that are available in the windows app. Physically it feels good to hold it in the hands, i like the vibrations feedback and response time. when played as a single instrument, sound quality is decent but when you start recording loops, add bass and chords it starts to deteriorate, becomes like re recorded tape...big downside, would be better with bose quality lol i get it i get it what did i expect for 100 bucks :). software is responsive but there are not enough controls, only few presets that are modifying existing 4 instrument types, i wish and hope there will be improvements that will allow to import other sounds or atleast more customizable adjustments similar to vst plugings. Also lost few cool loops while trying to save them and attempt to export them to a wave file or something Orba is good for the beats, but not for keyboard tunes since it is missing 5 intermediary keys of the oactave, yes you can set a key and notes are compatible but it is not as flexible without those black keys, i mean i wasnt able to make a cool remix of happy birthday song becuase of that 1 key is missing, so that inflexibility makes all jams kinda similar and somewhat limited in any key that you choose in the app. I actually used my jamman to record sounds separately and to end up with a longer jam, but sound quality wasnt that good through head phone jack either, better, but not high def. Clap, radiate, vibrato and tilt features are awesome, i was able to radite and tilt in lead mode some cool resonance, but again sound quality of the drum and bass bacame a smuge and orba was glitching. Anyway, i hope there will be improvements, not with soundboard i supouse :), but atleast with customizations of sounds, imports and exports. Good idea in general, but if it remains as is it would be more of a toy for my kids, they definaely loved it. It is just an honest review, from what i see so far, i have yet still to mess around with is as controller and check the bluetooth capability. Perhaps i missed something or did not find secretly available controls in the app but if anyone has any links with more advanced tutorials and how tos please let me know. But the idea is great ! I will be reading these threads to find out about other user experiences.

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Albert B.

said over 4 years ago

Worked out really amazing in garage band, since ipad processes sounds really good i was able to record with a great quality. It was very responsive too the modulations tilt, vibrato, etc. Also tried it with lmms on windows 10 but for some reason while connected with usb c, sounds srated to cutoff after 4 seconds, it seem there is some kind of incompatibility with windows. Thats ok though hopefully latest updates will fix that. I am still having a trouble figuring out how to play flat and sharp keys, tried to change different keys in the app but it seems it is not possible since there can only be either major scale in any key or a minor. Thank you though it is a nice controller, please keep improving.

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Mark Hoffer

said over 4 years ago

The stand alone sound patches could be a bit more varied, but having said that, I've been tapping out ideas during downtime in work, then using it as a midi controller with Reason software when i get home.
I love it

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Samantha Arwood

said over 4 years ago

Hello! Happy to be here! Any way that we’ll be able to program our own peculiar chords into the orba? I’m missing having my major sevenths and 9th chords

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Achim Pohl

said over 4 years ago

Hi.

Just got the little funball. So far it is quite a fun to play with. Ways for adding expression are cute.

Now the BUTs:

-Windows app is very confused about what is "saving", "uploading", "downloading", "overwriting". So far I only managed to save one song from the orba to PC, and once to somehow to put it on the orba again (but no idea how I did it, and it did not restore the presets I used when recording). Most of the time I succeed in deleting the current loop into nirvana or fucking up the song saved on PC.

-The statement "starts recording when you hit the first note" is not correct. It starts recording somewhere in the bars. Recording starts, when the metronome starts. If you are too excited to count: good luck finding the beginning of the loop. Only when a loop is recorded you get leds showing where in the bars you are.

-Speaking of bars: where do I set up how many bars I want to record. And is there a way to record more than 8 bars?

-Is there a way to record any other division than 4/4 (actually 8/4)?

-"You can set the pads to any note and key you like"? How? How to set a chromatic scale on 8 pads? As Samantha above asked: 7ths? 9ths? Can we edit the single note for any single pad?

-And then the Chords...

I know, I'm asking a lot here, and some things will not be achievable on the Orba. But a few ergonomic improvements should be possible, to make it a more rounded (pun intended) experience.

Thanks for reading in.