Turn Off Touch Sensitivity....Help!

[Peter Jackson]

Hi there,

Does anyone know how to turn off the touch sensitivity on DM3200?

I have replaced the original faders with P&G fader knobs as I prefer the feel. They are none conductive faders so now when I move them they don't move in Pro Tools in remote mode.

Any help most welcome!

Many Thanks

 

[Arjan P]

AFAIK, touch is only used to select the particular channel as you touch the fader, so without conductive caps you'd need to select the channel by pushing the green button above it.

 

[Peter Jackson]

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to work.

I'm hoping there is an On/Off tab somewhere so it works as motion sensitive...same as the pan.

 

[Peter Batah]

@Peter Jackson How did you go about changing the original faders?

 

[Peter Jackson]

I only changed the fader knobs.

 

[Peter Batah]

@Peter Jackson Ahh yes. Understood. Thank you for the prompt response.

 

[skier]

One other thing that I believe the touch faders do, is if you touch a fader during playback that has level automation, depending on your Preference settings, that channel will switch to automation recording so you can immediately record fader automation changes as you perform them. But again, I believe that you have to have your preferences set up to go into automation recording when you touch a channel's fader at that point.

 

[Arjan P]

I'm hoping there is an On/Off tab somewhere so it works as motion sensitive...same as the pan.

Does it really work with the old caps on? I can't imagine the fader level as transmitted to DAW having anything to do with touch sensitivity being on or off.

BTW, the setting is on the OPTION > SETUP page.

 

[Peter Jackson]

Yes, it works with the old caps...it also works without any caps and my finger making direct contact with the T mount. It's definitely a conduction thing. Surely you can turn off touch response!

 

[snafu]

One thing I can think of, is that the conduction sensitivity is used for channel detection. This would explain why it only works with the conductive faders put on. So touching the fader not only selects the track but assigns your current selected channel on the DM to a channel in your DAW.

As a technical work around you could maybe apply a conductive material (with very little resistance?) crossing your fader knob diametrically, so that when you touch a fader head conductivity is established. This may involve some problems like fixing your conductive material, whilst finding it in the first place (because I think your average cable copper won't do).
This will result in a ton of work.

I never tried this: So if I put on some latex gloves or my winter gloves the faders lose functionality?

Then again: the DM was also designed for live situations, and though not very likely there may be scenarios where you would feed your DM outputs straight into the PA, so my theory of channel detection wouldn't make too much sense.

Anyway: I think it won't work without conductivity.

 

[skier]

I've not seen any way to turn touch sensitivity off. Though, because you're now using non-conductive plastic knobs, I'd have thought that the faders would be acting as if touch sensitivity is off because the capacitance of your body likely cannot be sensed when touching the plastic knobs.

One other thing you can try, there is a preference setting that allows the user to increase or decrease touch sensitivity to compensate for varying humidity, calloused skin, etc. If you reduce the sensitivity to its lowest setting, combined with the plastic knobs, that may get you close enough to having the sensitivity off. Obviously, I don't truly know if it'll be enough, but it's something to try. You can read about this setting on the top-left of page 43 of the User Manual entitled (appropriately enough) "FADER SENSITIVITY".

Good luck!

 

[Peter Jackson]

One thing I can think of, is that the conduction sensitivity is used for channel detection. This would explain why it only works with the conductive faders put on. So touching the fader not only selects the track but assigns your current selected channel on the DM to a channel in your DAW.

As a technical work around you could maybe apply a conductive material (with very little resistance?) crossing your fader knob diametrically, so that when you touch a fader head conductivity is established. This may involve some problems like fixing your conductive material, whilst finding it in the first place (because I think your average cable copper won't do).
This will result in a ton of work.

I never tried this: So if I put on some latex gloves or my winter gloves the faders lose functionality?

Then again: the DM was also designed for live situations, and though not very likely there may be scenarios where you would feed your DM outputs straight into the PA, so my theory of channel detection wouldn't make too much sense.

Anyway: I think it won't work without conductivity.

Thanks for your response.

I just tried the wearing gloves experiment...Yep, you lose functionality.

So i guess my next question is, if I can't bypass this function...where can I buy white conductive fader caps?

Thanks everyone

 

[Arjan P]

Like I said in my first post, touching the conductive fader selects the channel - which you can also do with the green 'Select' button. But apparently it doesn't in Peter's case.

Bypassing touch sensitivity won't get that function back: Twice off is still off.

 

[Peter Jackson]

Thanks for that Arjan, very helpful. In this case once off will do I'm not looking to 'Select' channels...I want the DM3200 faders to control the PT faders in remote mode. They will not communicate without touch. Thanks anyway.

 

[snafu]

I just tried the wearing gloves experiment...Yep, you lose functionality.

Ah - I hoped, I was wrong on that - but after all it was too likely!

Peter, if you google for "motorfader heads" you come across a lot of motorfader modules - not exactly what you are looking for (though interestingly they are relatively affordable). I found some looking for "conductive potentiometer", though this may lead back to the same problem: metalic surface with at least as much grip as the Tascam potentiometers.

I know that the DM faders are very (very!) responsible int the fist place, meaning: with default settings you can adjust fine steps just with your finger tip moving the edge of the fader head. So obviously it doesn't take the full surface of your finger-tip to make contact with the fader head. You could use some super thin shielding wire or something like that, and attach it to the fader bar whereon normaly the head is attached to. Lead that wire around your desired fader head, and back to the bar. If this works, the rest would be merely finetuning the finxing - I bet there could be a fine optical solution, so it won't look like stoneage DIY ;-)

So, in short: I would try to combine my desired heads AND try to establish electric connectivity.

Cheers
snafu

 

[Arjan P]

I want the DM3200 faders to control the PT faders in remote mode. They will not communicate without touch. Thanks anyway.

Well, glad I'm not using PT then. Cubase just uses the movement of the fader, either selected by touch or not.

 

[Headroom]

What I found (Cubase): touching a fader selects the channel. Touching a second fader at the samen time leaves the first one selected, but Cubases uses the movement of both faders. But no touch -> no movement in Cubase.