Genki Instruments Wave

[SavageMessiah]

https://genkiinstruments.com/

Has anyone used the Wave with Wavefront module? It looks really cool but I could see it being more awkward than useful since it would pick up everything you do with that hand, even unintentionally.

[mdoudoroff]

Crickets.

But I am intrigued. Buchla experimented with this sort of thing.

Looks like $200 for the ring itself, and $200 for the Eurorack module.

[Paranormal Patroler]

Crickets.

But I am intrigued. Buchla experimented with this sort of thing.

Looks like $200 for the ring itself, and $200 for the Eurorack module.

Seems a bit pricey to me. I was very interested in this but I can't justify spending $400. Maybe later.

[lylebot]

I've been using Wave + Wavefront for a couple of weeks so far, really enjoying it. Like any piece of gear you have to get to know the quirks to get the most out of it. Some random thoughts in no particular order:

• Basics are on point: pairing was a breeze, the ring feels comfortable to wear and use.

• The default settings were too sensitive for me, but it was easy to adjust this with Edit Mode. I adjusted the movement ranges for Tilt, Pan, Roll, to somewhere around their maximum ranges, and the sensitivity for Tap to the minimum (without turning it off), I found that very helpful with playability. Obviously attenuation can help here too.

• I haven't yet found a good way to use Pan and Vibrato outputs individually, so at this point I haven't gotten any real usefulness out of Vibrato specifically, but I'm finding three dimensions of motion are plenty to be keeping track of at once anyway.

• It's really playable! Due to the sensitivity though I prefer to set up patches that are specifically designed around being controlled with the three dimensions (plus gates from Click, and occasionally Tap), and then once those are set up I step away from the modular and just focus on my hand movements.

• The little screen is great! It's extremely helpful to get the visual feedback on where you are with Tilt, Pan, and Roll, and I find when I'm playing I'm usually also looking at the screen, though it can be fun to close my eyes too.

• I wish it had some visual feedback when it's charging; the first time it ran out of charge and I plugged it into USB power, I didn't see any lights go on and I was worried it was broken. But it was fine.

• Recentering doesn't work how I'd expect it to. I wish when I held the center button to recenter, it just put my current position as the middle point for Tilt, Pan, and Roll, but instead it seems to put my current position as the bottom left of the range? Or something like that? I don't have mine in front of me right now (writing from work) so I can't confirm exactly what it does, but anyway this is a minor gripe. Hopefully in the future they will fix this.

• Another odd thing related to recentering is that if you move beyond the end of the range (e.g. continuing to move your hand leftward when you're already all the way left in the Pan range) it seems to redefine the range. I see that as a pro since it means I could, for instance, turn around and keep playing without having to explicitly recenter, but it's definitely something to be aware of. Since recentering didn't work how I expected (see above bullet), I usually "recenter" using this approach instead (by moving the extremes until the center is where I want it).

• I initially thought I might want two of these, but I found that even one takes a lot of focus to get the most out of, so I'll probably be sticking with one.

Anyway all in all I'm having a great time with it. I've been primarily using it with a small case focused on Morphagene, using Click to shift between splices and Tilt, Pan, Roll to control various things, and for that use case it has been working out great. Morphagene is a module I've always loved to play by hand with knob tweaking, so it's cool having another way to e.g. scrub around with the Slide parameter which feels more gestural than just moving a knob.

[batch]

I have it and really like it, though admittedly have only had for a week.

I have had a lot of fun in my time using theremins to control the modular. This is similar but with more voltage sources. Am using it through a Sinfonion with the auto gate feature to make melodies/ leads. As @Lylebot says, it’s a breeze to setup and three axis are more than enough, but I am using the others as just random voltage sources.

Only gripe is that I wish the wavefront had another out so you could have two clicks (top and bottom buttons) as find these useful for routing and things like that.

Anyway, it’s lots of fun and would be great live.

[Paranormal Patroler]

Is it worth the price of admission though?

[southberry]

Just grab one ! it's an amazing tool ... I've always try to add gesture to my modular system (the thing I'm missing from my other instruments ... human interactivity) ... so so so cool ...

like lylebot said, I find that re-centering is a bit tricky, otherwise, is so easy to use it ... it's easy to disconnect it when you want to wiggle without sending mouvement

[mdoudoroff]

Any reports yet on how well the new general Bluetooth MIDI support works with the Wavefront module?
https://genkiinstruments.com/blogs/the- ... -euroracks

[batch]

Wasn’t aware they had a firmware update. Will download and try it out.

[Naenyn]

Wish I had the experience other owners here have had. I received my wave + wavefront today and wavefront seems stuck on +7.6v for all outs but the click. Reaching out to Genki for assistance... maybe I have a bad Wavefront?

[Paranormal Patroler]

I have bad experiences with Wave so far (twice) but I'll report here only after I've gone through the whole process so that I have a fair assessment. So far, not a happy customer.

No wavefront though, just the wave.

[Synnic]

Wish I had the experience other owners here have had. I received my wave + wavefront today and wavefront seems stuck on +7.6v for all outs but the click. Reaching out to Genki for assistance... maybe I have a bad Wavefront?

Did you ever get this resolved? My Wavefront arrived today and I'm having the same problem. I just messaged support about 10 minutes ago.

[Naenyn]

Wish I had the experience other owners here have had. I received my wave + wavefront today and wavefront seems stuck on +7.6v for all outs but the click. Reaching out to Genki for assistance... maybe I have a bad Wavefront?

Did you ever get this resolved? My Wavefront arrived today and I'm having the same problem. I just messaged support about 10 minutes ago.

Not yet! Thanks for posting about it. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one ... was worried I broke it somehow. That does raise other concerns though (quality control)!

Their first response was to ask me to update the firmware ... which I had already said I did in my initial request.

[Paranormal Patroler]

I didn't even get to complete the update. Tried several times including the alternative method. No dice

[Naenyn]

I didn't even get to complete the update. Tried several times including the alternative method. No dice

Have you had any luck with their support?

[Paranormal Patroler]

I didn't even get to complete the update. Tried several times including the alternative method. No dice

Have you had any luck with their support?

They've been v e r y responsive. I've exchanged several detailed emails but they dropped the communication ball recently, so I had to give them a reminder today. Still waiting. But so far it's been a disappointment in terms of quality assurance.

Final judgement is still to be made. It's a small team, so I'll wait for the end result.

Did anyone else do the update with success? I was a bit bummed to get a brand new unit directly from them only to find that it needs an update.

[Naenyn]

Have you had any luck with their support?

They've been v e r y responsive. I've exchanged several detailed emails but they dropped the communication ball recently, so I had to give them a reminder today. Still waiting. But so far it's been a disappointment in terms of quality assurance.

Final judgement is still to be made. It's a small team, so I'll wait for the end result.

Did anyone else do the update with success? I was a bit bummed to get a brand new unit directly from them only to find that it needs an update.

Glad they're very responsive. That is reassuring.

I had no problems with the firmware update using v0.10.0 of Softwave. Both my Wavefront and Wave needed updates. The upgrade process worked fine on the first try with Wavefront. Wave took two tries. At first, the updater couldn't seem to find Wave. Cycling power on Wave and reconnecting did the trick.

I hope they get us all sorted. I have to admit I was on the fence for quite a long time with purchasing .. decided to give it a go with the recent (?) sale. I still have a Hot Hand USB that reminds me a lot of Wave. It was fun, from time to time. Wavefront seemed really interesting, so to have it misbehave so badly has been disappointing.

[Paranormal Patroler]

Did you do the update on Windows?

[Naenyn]

Did you do the update on Windows?

No, macOS

[oleszkiewi.cz]

I have ring and module since 2-3 months.
Really good quality, super fast, no latency never had any problem with connecting.
App is really good working and looking also.

[Paranormal Patroler]

Did you do the update on Windows?

No, macOS

I haven't had any success with Windows 10 or the phone app they suggested.

[Naenyn]

I haven't had any success with Windows 10 or the phone app they suggested.

Well, that’s certainly a problem. Hope they get you sorted.
I hadn’t realized there was a phone version of their app.

I haven’t heard back since the initial response... hopefully they respond tonight.

[Paranormal Patroler]

Not an app of theirs. An app for updates of BLE devices, that is suggested in their documentation if their software does not manage to update the Wave.

[southberry]

I have ring and module since 2-3 months.
Really good quality, super fast, no latency never had any problem with connecting.
App is really good working and looking also.

Same here ! love to affect different movements to different CV control on O_C sequins (octave , pattern length, trigger , pattern seq ... )
so much fun !
Didn't get through the app yet ...
I have a lot of fun with it ... I need to look a bit more on the range / sensibilité settings
it's not super intuitive to control it directly on the ring, is it possible to set everything via the app ?

[Naenyn]

Wish I had the experience other owners here have had. I received my wave + wavefront today and wavefront seems stuck on +7.6v for all outs but the click. Reaching out to Genki for assistance... maybe I have a bad Wavefront?

Did you ever get this resolved? My Wavefront arrived today and I'm having the same problem. I just messaged support about 10 minutes ago.

I got another response from them last night. They're asking me to send back my Wavefront and they're going to send me a new one. I'm a little concerned there is a bad batch, considering you had the same problem, so I asked if they could test it before sending it to me.

I'll report back when I get the replacement.