User Manual

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Touchpad
COBALT5S contains a multi-axis, pressure-sensitive, highly-configurable touchpad for applying
modulation and pitch bend.
The touchpad has five axes - X+, X-, Y+, Y-, Z / pressure - each of which are modulation
sources in the COBALT5S modulation matrix.
The touchpad can be set to one of five modes and contains various other settings for
configuring the exact behaviour and response.
Touch Modes
The touchpad can be set to one of five modes for configuring the XY position behaviour and
pitch bend generation.
• Pitch Bend + Mod (default): Absolute 4-axis XY position, X+ / X- generates pitch bend
• Mod: Absolute 4-axis XY position, no pitch bend generation
• Dyn Pitch Bend + Mod: Dynamic relative 4-axis XY position, X+ / X - generates pitch
bend
• Dyn Mod: Dynamic relative 4-axis XY position, no pitch bend generation
• Classic XY: Absolute 2-axis XY position (X+ / Y+ only), no pitch bend generation
The ‘Absolute’ modes behave in the same way as most other 4-axis touchpads - e.g. press in
the centre to generate a central value, press in the top right corner to generate an X+ and Y+
value, and so on.
However with the ‘Dynamic relative’ modes the value that is generated is relative from the
position of the initial press - the XY position of the initial press generates a central value which
is then dynamically scaled from this position as you move your finger. For example - press
anywhere on the left side of the touchpad to generate a central value, and then move your
finger to the right to generate X+ values where the full X+ range is scaled from the start
position to the right-side edge of the touchpad.
This behaviour can be useful for a number of reasons:
• If you always want to start from a central / 0 value, this behaviour means you don’t have
to worry about pressing on the centre of the touchpad
• If you only want to control one side of the X or Y axis with each touch, this behaviour can
provide you with up to 2x the physical range for controlling an X or Y axis
Touchpad
While the majority of the available Touch Modes give you access to all 4 XY axes (bipolar), the
‘Classic XY’ mode gives you access to X+ and Y+ (unipolar) only but behaves like the more
traditional XY touchpads that you may be more familiar with.
Primarily the Touch Mode is a global settings (found on the “Settings - UI & Controls” screen
page) for setting your preferred behaviour that will be applied to all patches.
However, there is also the option to give each patch its own mode. This “Patch Mode” option
can be found on the “Touchpad” screen page where, when set to “Global”, it uses the global
settings value.
Touchpad Lock
By default, when you release a touch the generated value resets back to the central / 0 value.
However, if you enable the ‘Lock’ performance parameter (using the ‘Shift + Oct+’ button
combo, or using the screen parameter) the generated value will ‘lock’ to the last position on
touch release.
By default, this ‘lock’ functionality only applies to the X and Y axes, however using the “Touch
Z Locking” global setting you can enable Z locking so that the Z axis / pressure value will lock
to the hardest pressed force value.
MIDI Output
By default the touchpad sends the following MIDI messages to the MIDI outputs:
• X+ / X-: pitch bend (if using a pitch bend Touch Mode), or CC 116 / CC 117 (if using a
mod-only or classic XY Touch Mode)
• Y+ / Y-: CC 1 (Mod Wheel) / CC 118
• Z: CC 11 (Expression)
However Pitch Bend, Mod Wheel, and Expression messages can be disabled using global
settings to help prevent conflicts with external MIDI devices.