Carbon Electra 2 - First Impressions, Workflow Suggestions, and Bug Reports

Carbon Electra 2
1

Hello everyone,

I purchased Carbon Electra 2 today, and so far it has been living up to my expectations. I was looking for a synth that offers enough tools for sound design experimentation without feeling overly complex or overwhelming. I really like the interface overall. As others have already mentioned, I think additional scaling options would be appreciated. On my screen, 120% feels a bit too large, while 100% is slightly too small.

Regarding the Scale Lock feature, I would love to see a global option that keeps it enabled when switching presets. (If this option already exists, my apologies—I couldn’t find it.)

Another small thing I feel is missing is a few additional keyboard shortcuts to speed up workflow. For example, when adjusting pitch-related parameters, holding Shift + Up/Down could jump by ±12 semitones instead of moving one semitone at a time. Ableton and some other plugins use similar shortcuts, and little workflow improvements like that can make sound design much faster and more enjoyable.

Now, onto the issue that bothered me the most:

I recorded a short video to better demonstrate what I’m experiencing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiVu7unDlGM

  • Even though the plugin is properly licensed, clicking the Scaler logo displays an “Unlicensed” message.

  • If I repeatedly close and reopen the plugin very quickly, I can briefly see a “TRIAL EXPIRED” message flashing in the background while the plugin window is refreshing.

  • If I hold a note and then close/reopen the plugin, the note gets cut off during the process.

  • When switching presets rapidly, the plugin sometimes outputs sounds from the preset settings, as if something is unintentionally triggering notes.

  • I also experienced a few Ableton crashes while performing these tests.

It’s worth mentioning that despite the “Unlicensed” and “TRIAL EXPIRED” messages, the plugin appears to be fully functional and behaves like a properly registered version. I haven’t noticed any demo limitations or restrictions.

I also never downloaded or used a trial version—I purchased the product directly. Additionally, my computer is correctly listed as activated in my account on the website, which makes the licensing messages seem more like a UI/display issue than an actual activation problem.

That said, I understand this is a newly released product, and I’m confident these issues will be addressed in upcoming updates.

Thanks, and congratulations to the team on the release!

2

Hi @rzimer Welcome to the forum and thanks for all the useful feedback.
We have many of these requests on our list and have added a few more thanks to your feedback.

The ‘Unlicensed’ issue is patched and we have a 2.0.2 update for PC/Mac resolving this and some other bugs we have found (including the ’ If I hold a note and then close/reopen the plugin, the note gets cut off during the process.').

Again thank you, we listen to and consider all feedback!

1 Like
3

Hi @davide,

Thanks for the quick reply. I’ve spent a bit more time with CE2 and found a few more things that might be useful.

The first one is related to the Settings toggles. When a toggle is OFF, it’s grey. As soon as I hover it, it becomes blue, even before clicking it. The problem is that the hover state looks identical to the enabled state.

Because of that:

  • Hovering an OFF toggle makes it look ON.

  • Clicking it ON produces no visible change while the cursor remains over the button.

  • Clicking it OFF also produces no visible change while the cursor remains over the button.

  • Only after moving the cursor away does it return to its grey OFF state.

It’s difficult to tell whether I’m looking at a hover state or an enabled state because visually they’re the same thing.

I also found a very similar behavior in the sequencer.

When I click a different note within the same vertical lane, the note doesn’t visually change immediately. The new note only appears after I move the cursor away from the note area.

This happens consistently on my system.

When the sequencer is running, the behavior changes a bit. The note will eventually update even if I keep the cursor over it, but the timing feels inconsistent. Sometimes it updates almost immediately, sometimes after a short delay, and sometimes only when the playhead reaches that step.

The note is never left behind permanently, but it doesn’t feel as immediate as it should.

I also have a small UI suggestion

When opening dropdowns such as Trigger, Transpose, Direction, Mode, Scale, etc., the opened menu tends to visually blend into the controls underneath it. Maybe some slight dimming, blur, or stronger separation of the background controls could make the active dropdown stand out more clearly

Still regarding the sequencer:

Currently, as soon as I hover over an existing note, the cursor switches to the grab hand cursor, indicating that the note can be moved.

I wonder if the workflow would feel more direct if grab mode only activated when holding the mouse button.

Something like:

  • Single click on an empty slot → create note.

  • Double click on an existing note → delete note.

  • Click and hold on an existing note → move note.

  • Click and drag while creating a note → stretch note length .

I only mention this because while testing, I started wondering whether the immediate grab behavior might be contributing to some of the note-editing responsiveness I’m seeing.

Hopefully this feedback helps improve the experience further. Thanks again!