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Hi,

I've been playing around with the slide controllers and it might be me doing something wrong...But I have to press down quite hard to get the sliders to react. I experience quite a lot of friction sliding my fingers over the leather surface, up to the point that it becomes really uncomfortable.

Is it possible to have the leather replaced with -for instance- metal? My EWI2000s has metal sliding strips which are wonderful to touch and don't cause friction at all.

Or am I indeed doing something wrong?

thanks,

Vincent

Hi Vincent

The active region on the Alpha is quite narrow, in the middle of the side. You do have to press firmly, but if you position your finger accurately then it's not excessive. Most people struggle with this to start with as they implicitly assume that the whole width is active, which it isn't, and that the sensitivity is the same all the way across, which it isn't either.

It's not inconceivable to replace the leather with something else (though this is quite a tricky operation, probably the most fiddly in the whole manufacturing of an Alpha in fact) but we never found a good alternative. The one thing that worked well was ultra thin PTFE, but sadly that's an exceptionally ugly semi translucent brown (and cannot be coloured) as well as near impossible to bond properly, so we gave up on that in the end.

Just writing this I'm wondering if there's a silicone based leather treatment that might make it more slippy. Perhaps someone should have a try - I know that silicones get used in leather treatment and there's no particular reason they should degrade the sensor underneath.

John

Okay, I will try that today, see if it works! @ John, silicon treatment might indeed work, although It feels somewhat scary too ;) I would not want to mess it up hehe, silicon is hard to get rid of if it reaches the wrong places.

Anyway thanks for the tips!

Vincent