Yeuda Ben-atar, a.k.a. Side Brain, is a controllerist and beat maker based in Los Angeles. His unusual approach to performance includes using a Dreamcast arcade controller for finger drumming which won him a custom, one-of-a-kind Launchpad from Novation.
He has used that Launchpad to create a unique glitch machine named the FxGrid, which exclusively uses native Ableton Live Suite devices, with no Max4Live or other bells and whistles. It’s easy to implement and run, and available here.
It comes as no surprise that Max for Live has opened a world of possibilities for controllerists. Shortly after it was released, I recall seeing the Isotonik device, built by Darren Cowley for use with the Akai APC40, floating around the internet.
“[Isotonik solves] a number of the frustrations we had when DJing live with Ableton.” Cowley said, “The feature list runs to a couple of sides of paper, but includes on the fly looping, follow actions at clip end, 8 banks of user configurable encoders.” According to Cowley, Isotonik, now in version eight, is the number one downloaded device on maxforlive.com.
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In the myriad of internet videos, it’s often hard to find something new and exciting.
Enter Herrmutt Lobby.
This Belgian music group has added a new dimension to controllerism by allowing you to make beats… with faders. Oh, and if you’re a proud owner of Maxforlive, they’ve made their device available to the public.
From my understanding, their device acts as a granular sampler for use with MIDI CC values, which trigger notes as you scroll over the points you place beforehand, leaving you with a much wider range of musical possibilities.
To learn more about these guys, visit herrmuttlobby.com.
At the end of March I posted about the Warper Party Radio Extravaganza. Every week we host a couple of recording sessions and I photograph all the artists who play. You can see detailed photos of their set-ups at this LINK and then hear them play music and describe their hardware, software, methods, and philosophy on their archived shows. So much GEAR!!!
