ERAE TOUCH WALKTHROUGH SERIES

We have created a complete in-depth walkthrough series to help you settle with your brand new ERAE Touch, on our Youtube playlist.

SWITCHING ON

First, switch on your ERAE Touch. While doing this, avoid pressing on the top surface as the ripple patterns are calibrating the sensors. 

MENU 

Press the home button to get to the layout selection menu. There are 16 layouts slots and each layout has an alternative layout. Press alt to get there. Usually, alt layouts are similar to the main ones, but set to MPE. When you get your Erae Touch, 30 layouts come with it, you can modify any of them or create your own. 

FIRST LAYOUT

The first layout has two elements, one keyboard and one keygrid. A keygird is our name for the isomorphic type of representation of notes. Here, you can see the relation between keyboard and keygrid notes location. 

SCALE

So let’s select one element, the Keygrid for exemple. Just press anywhere on it, then, click the F-flef button and get to the scale selection menu. The first line displays the current selected scale. To change it, you’ll have to click on any key to select the fundamental, then type of scale, Major, Minor, Gypsy and so on. 

Say I choose F Harmonic Minor, then click on the F-clef to go back to the layout, the notes I have here on the keygrid are F Minor notes only. Going back on the F clef, I can click on Melodic Minor again and the CH for chromatic shows up. This displays out of scales notes so you have the full chromatic scales while keeping the color code and arrangement of F minor. 

Let’s do this again with the keyboard element. Press anywhere on it then click the F clef. By default, you are in chromatic scale, this is why all the white keys look the same and the back keys too. By selecting one scale, say F minor again, you see it only displays in blue notes from the scale while out of scale notes are greyed out. This all you need to know about scale selection on the ERAE Touch F clef button.

MAPPING

Now let’s dive into the multidimensionality of the ERAE Touch. For this, I’ll choose layout 6, which is a drum pad, it works the same for most elements. 

You can select the mapping mode by pressing the F clef for one second. From there you can see that Layout 6 is set on the MIDI channel 8 and has two control changes enabled : Absolute X and Absolute Y, which is perfect for finger drumming or playing with sticks as we will see.

On Ableton Live or any DAW, select the sound parameter you want to assign abs X to, say the stereo panning and assign the abs Y to the filter EQ. To do this, turn on the midi mapping mode from your DAW, select the parameter you want to control, and press the axis you want to assign. Now this parameter is just under your finger

FX

If you long press on the alt button, a vertical panel will appear on the right side of the Erae. You can see the letters H-A-R-D, standing for Harmoniser, Arpegiator, Repeater, and Delay. Those are Midi FX made by the Erae Touch. You can access the setting panel by pressing the letter, and enable it by pressing the red button under each one of them.

ABLETON LAUNCHPAD + MIXER

The Ableton live pad is a representation of the ableton clip launcher. each column will represent a track. Your clips are in the upper part. In the lower part you have the basic track control like enable / disable on the yellow button, solo on the blue one and the red arm button.

You have two zoom mode, large and small. press plus to zoom in where you can see nine tracks, or press minus to zoom out and to have a large view of 12 tracks. You can scroll through your clips and tracks by pressing and holding the “clef de fa” sign and scroll up, down, right or left through the clip launcher.

ERAE TOUCH CALIBRATION

Now let's talk about the calibration. The Erae Touch is a very sensitive controller. The temperature, and the movement might slightly change the shape of the silicon surface and the way it triggers the sensors. If you travel with your ERAE, you might have to calibrate it to avoid too much imbalance between the sensors. Like you’ll tune a guitar or any other instrument before playing. You might not need the calibration every time but it could be a useful tool to make sure it respond the way you want.

There are two modes of calibration depending on your need. 

Stuck note calibration

If a sensor keeps being triggered without touching any part of the Erae just press Alt and + simultaneously. It will signal your Erae that you are not touching it, and therefore understand its need to calibrate.

Simple False positive debug

The first one is a very simple false positive, if you touch the surface then click on the Menu and '+' button simultaneously, you will see the last place where the Erae was triggered. So if you see that an area is triggered although it was not by you, just go to this calibration mode (Home and +) and double tap on where it was triggered. The first tap is to select the point you want to calibrate, you can see that it turns red, and the second tap will confirm the correction of the sensors.

BASIC LAYOUT CREATION ON THE LAB

Let's quickly open the software coming with the Erae Touch. 30 factory layouts come with the Erae. The Erae Lab allows you to modify any of them and create your own with your own savable style and tuning. To do so, select the layout you want to change, click on the import button, make the style or tune modification you want before downloading it back to the Erae. You can even enable the Live view that allows you to see in real time the modification you’re making. From the Lab you can change the size, colors, animations of each element. The possibilities are quite endless from there.

FIRMWARE UPDATES

You can update the firmware from the Erae Lab software, you can download the last firmware on embodme.com/downloads. 

To update your Erae Touch,  open the Erae Lab, make sure the Erae Lab is connected to your computer, if it is detected the current firmware version of your Erae will be shown in the top right corner of the Lab. Just click on it and drag and drop the SYX file on the Lab and start update.

A loading bar will appear on your Erae touch, the update finishes with a message indicating “ERAE Touch updated”.