Fame Tweak 100 (rebranded Worlde Panda 200, MPC clone) - a programing nightmare

[Compyfox]

There is hope that there are users on KVR who use this MPC clone, and got it working like desired.

I'm currently trying to set that thing up for a youth club studio environment. Unfortunately the manual is more than crap. Unfortunately that is both the case for the German distributor (rebranded) and the developer (Worlde). Combine both and you have less gibberish in terms of language, but even more confusing ??? above your head.


Thankfully, I'm a bit skilled from my Behringer BCR2000 still. So editing is not such a nightmare as I originally expected. Doesn't mean that it's still chaotic though.


I could find out (not thanks to the manual), that I can only program 21 of the 26 available buttons. This is due to the fact that the "host control" buttons are not adressed by the EDIT mode of the software. Unfortunately they also do not work in any host I tried so far.

Then there's the thing with the pads - they are adressed in Note Number. Not a big issue if you have a sheet available for that, or your software has MIDI learn features. Still crazy how this thing is setup.

The biggest issue I have with this device, is the numeric readouts on the LCD.

The first line shows me either the OS Branding (FAME in this case), the second line has four values. Example:

Code: Select all

100 02 H10 C41

I found out that the following:
First value:
In case of the pads, that's the Note Number. In case of buttons, faders and rotary controller, that's the value that is sent

Second value:
In case of the pads, that "might be" the Velocity, in case of buttons/faders/rotary controller, that's the MIDI CC value

Third value:
Doesn't change - I don't know what this is for.

Fourth Value:
C<nr> - I assume that's the number of the particular pad, rotary, button or fader. As in "Controller number xx"



So... with this self-thought-through stuff, I could program half of the controller. BUT... some things that clearly do not make sense.

1) MIDI CC values either go from 0-127 or 1-128 - this thing goes to 130
2) The manual said something about aftertouch for the pads - no aftertouch in reality
3) Bank Mode has bugs (makes it possible to have even more buttons at your disposal)
4) Host controllers can't be programmed - even if written to be able in the manual
5) what's that H10 for?!




If there is anyone here on KVR, or knows somebody at GS or something, that has this thing, programmed it and made at least SOME sense out of it. Help would be greatly appreciated. A control software would be nice as well - but so far, I didn't find any clue.


I can still try to read out things with MIDIox or something. But I haven't done that in years, and last time I did that I was still on XP, and the device could send a MIDI SYSEX dump (BCR2000).


Else, this thing is great for it's price. Looks easy to repair as well. Just the manual is utter crap!

[Compyfox]

Okay... I have to revive my own thread to vent a little bit.

It took me months to finally dig a bit more deeper into this device, and the only thing I can say is:
DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!

Please invest more and get a real AKAI, or KORG or even the smallest NI Machine. Trust me, you'll have way more fun with these devices rather than the Worlde clones.

The concept is actually quite good, and it would be worth your money, if it would actually work as advertised. Also, the C1 (Pad 1) is to the top left, and not to the bottom left - like the MPC's (which can be changed around with the Note_Value settings).



Let's go a little bit in-depth:

The manual speaks of something like "up to 78 independent parameters with the knob, faders and buttons" (that divided through 2 equals 39 buttons/faders/knobs while you have 8 faders, 5 knobs and 26 buttons). While this is indeed true in theory. In actual working terms, it isn't possible due to some really nasty bugs within the hardware's firmware. Sadly enough, there is no firmware update, neither did I find an alternative firmware. So this is more than frustrating.

A couple of examples:
- every time you changed something (like all 8 faders to the top left of this device), you need to hit the ENTER button first, and to double confirm the changes, you need to globally save the whole "set" into the device. I highly advise you to do this, else you set up the whole device, and think that everything is saved... not a chance. Fell for that myself.
- If you set up all rotaries and faders on Parameter Bank A, then proceed to configure all rotaries and faders on Bank B, then all faders/rotary parameters are reset - you have to start from scratch
- rotaries and buttons can not(!) use the same MIDI CC value, even if the hardware was programmed like that. If you do that, the OS barfs and funks up everything (even goes into 150+ MIDI CC numbers, something that is not possible in the real world)
- if you found out that you can not create a "Bank B" for the 5 assignable rotaries, and you happened to be lucky to program the available faders, but then proceed to change the reassignable buttons - everything is funked over. Even the Trigger Pad settings
- every time you relaunch the device, you have to switch through all Banks (Parameter and PAD banks) in order to let the device properly initialize - this is a major annoyance if you just want to start this thing and get to work
- the host control buttons do not work (and I tried it with several hosts)
- the value knob is really jumpy, and the OS responds very slow. Reminded me a bit of the old AVID ProControl's knob behavior


And this is barely scratching the surface.

The "Preset Modes" don't work (you have three presets, but you can't set them or save them independently), there is no good documentation in the manual (read: nonexistent). Even programming that device is not really clear if you go by the manual alone. I found out most of this stuff by trial and error, and thanks to the experience i have with MIDI hardware and the Behringer Control Rotary (which is way simpler to program btw!). This thing is an absolute mess, and it took me 2-3 hours to finally realize what was wrong, and why my parameters were constantly being reset.

So the only logical thing I did with this device, was to mostly keep it as is (read: NOT TOUCH the assignable buttons), and only use one parameter bank. What do you know... it's working. And I didn't even bother with setting up MIDI channels, or finding out advanced features of that device. The manual is just... crap.

So in the end, I had access to:
- 16 pads
- 8 freely assignable faders
- 5 freely assignable rotary knobs
- no buttons (except an "all note off" button and "all parameter reset" button that was setup from the start, not to mention the PAD/Control Bank and general editing buttons
- no host control buttons

That's it - nothing more.



Is this device actually usable?

I think if it's modded in terms of the pads (see various AKAI MPC pad modification son Youtube), then it's a little more joy to use the trigger pads. Else you need to hit them really hard. If you're not used to that with your fingers, it can hurt after a while.

Then there is a rubber nub, like an additional "foot", right in the middle under the device. This interferes with the center pads, and can result in no triggering whatsoever. So that needs to be trimmed or somewhat counter acted with a towel below this device.

Else, I could use my drum sampler of choice (One Small Clue's POISE) at a very enjoyable speed and usability. It made fun to quick-setup the global pad pan, volume and pitch, I could edit the samples and ADSR courves (though I couldn't switch through the layers with the hardware - might as well use the mouse), triggering stuff made a load of fun. But else, I couldn't do much with it. I hoped to set it up to also control the modulation panels, automate the channel selection, activate on/off buttons, etc. But absolutely no dice on that end.


In order to get some actual use out of it, you need to set it up first (joy if you don't know how!), then do some MIDI learn in POISE and hope that nothing funks up in like a week or so (which didn't happen for me). If you know what you're doing, you're set within half an hour to 3/4th an hour. If not, grab a lot(!) of cocoa!



SUMMARY:
This is a clone of the MPD32 which only costs a fraction of the AKAI creation and has more buttons.
But what good is it, if you can actually only use a fraction of it's advertised functions?

If there will ever be an OS update that makes this thing actually usable as advertised - maybe then it's a steal at that price. Else... do yourself a favor... do not buy this device. And it's not even the fault of the MusicStore in Cologne, Germany. Just like Thomann, they buy from third party hardware providers - and if that hardware is crap to begin with...


Thankfully it was not my money that went to waste - it's part of the youth club project studio. But now that I actually know this thing, and know how hard it is to set up... hopefully never again. At least not on purpose, and I think about it twice if I might get this one as a gift. Even if it's currently 69EUR street.



ALTERNATIVES that come close to the features of the Fame Tweak 100/Worlde Panda 200:
- AKAI MPD32 (no power switch!) - 235EUR street
- AKAI MPD18 (no power switch! 98EUR) in combination with Behringer Control Rotary (135EUR street) - together about 250EUR street max
- NI Machine Mk2 (deluxe solution at 600EUR, it's the middle sized controller)

Alternatively (not that many knobs and rotaries):
- AKAI MPD26 (no power switch!, only one Controller Bank, read 6 faders, 6 rotaries) - 189EUR street
- KORG padKontrol (no power switch)- 150EUR street
- maybe M-Audio's Trigger Finger (not too fond of their hardware these days, 369EUR)
- NI's Tracktor Kontrol F1 (if usable outside of Tracktor, 189EUR street)

[taupter]

Hello there.


I'd like to take some information about how to mod this device. The concept of modding is not new to me, and I'm reasonably skilled at writing code to embedded platforms. As far as I can tell Fame Tweak 25, 49, 61 and 100 use the same internal circuit board or at least the same firmware, branded to each vendor (mine is a Waldman Carbon 61). This firmware has a lot of bugs, the worst ones are, in my opinion, the keyboard velocity imprevisibility and when you play an interval of 5th and while at it you press the diminished 5th it doesn't sound most times (the MIDI command goes garbled). I'd love to fix it just for the sake of fixing it, but finding a way to extract its firmware, or getting a firmware/flash program from a manufactures seems impossible. If some good samaritan was able to find the firmware and the flasher I could try a hand at it. Are you aware of someone who could put it on my hands?

[Compyfox]

If there are no Yahoo USer Groups or anything on the official webpage of the hardware, I'm afraid that you're out of luck.

[Jagd1]

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Having purchased one of these units I followed your post with great interest. Why on earth the Chinese Manufacturer/Developer did not invest in decent software is beyond me. With the same sort of modifications done to the Akai MPD32 & MPD26 (see below) and some good software it would be a sure fire competitor to both plus other similar models.

Akai MPD pad modifications here: http://www.mpcstuff.com/mpd32stuff.html (http://www.mpcstuff.com/mpd32stuff.html)

There are a number of other solutions available through E-Bay depending on your world location but US E-Bay carries a number usually according to taste, function and of course budget. Postage on these parts is usually quite cheap as the parts themselves are quite light or small.

However as soon as I came across "Bome Software's MIDI Translator I thought of your problems and wondered if it would not go part way to solving your problems. Quite simply the software translates an input message from say a drum pad or keyboard key which is at one value into an output message at another e.g. a Drum VST. Reasoning this I wondered if the values of "all" the pads, buttons, knobs and sliders as input from the Fame Tweak 100 (Worlde Panda 200 etc) could be translated into a value useable on the VST. The software is not free at $77 (+Conversion Fee), €59 Euros or Approximately £49 in it's full version but it has a lesser version either paid for or by Postcardware (I'll leave you to find that one out). There are also Demos of the programme plus it's manual.

Available on line here: http://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator (http://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator)

There is also an apparently useful Sysex utility and other software of interest.

If this works with the Fame Tweak/Worlde Panda I don't see why it should not work on other devices and there are a number of U-Tube Videos which indicate that it will. I've wanted to pair an Akai MPD32 with an Akai APC40 (usually only aimed at Ableton Live) for use with Reaper, FL Studio and Cakewalk, this may be the software to do it. It seems that it has been used successfully in Live, Studio and Home Studio applications and at least one rave review has it working and well integrated with Pro Tools 11 as below:

http://www.jimcosoftware.com/index.php/ ... tware/pt11 (http://www.jimcosoftware.com/index.php/reviews/audio-software/pt11)

So time, cash and inclination may provide an answer to some of the problems and others not yet encountered too. I hope this helps.

Jagd1

[Jagd1]

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Here is a review of Bome's MIDI Translator with examples, I hope you find it of use and interest:

http://www.jimcosoftware.com/index.php/ ... translator (http://www.jimcosoftware.com/index.php/reviews/audio-software/midi-translator)

Jagd1

[Compyfox]

I only had this device for setup - it's not my own

Please - those people contacting me - I CAN NOT HELP YOU!
I only vented my frustration and ultimately decided not to go for this device myself in the end.