When I began searching for more expressive MIDI controllers, touch-strips were something rare. Now they’re frickin’ everywhere: Novation’s Twitch, Dave Smith/Roger Linns’ Tempest, Akai’s new Max49 and of course, on my own Mojo.
So what I’d like to know is, what’s the next unconventional sensor to work its way into mass acceptance on these sorts of instruments? Arcade buttons? Joysticks? Accelerometers? Whack’a'moles? Let us know your prediction in the comments.
Controllerist/bassist/singer, Johnny Lubvic, performs with his custom built “Basstroller” with Italian electro-synth-punk band Not Ordinary Dead. Lubvic controls filters, effects and much more with this hybrid bass controller. Photo courtesy of: Johhny Lubvic
And the Controllerism.com Hack of the Month award for January 2012 goes to San Francisco based controllerist Rich DDT for his wacky, wearable MIDI performance controller, the ControlliTAR. We applaud you Mr. DDT!
Rich has been developing this controller mash-up since July 2010, when he was first inspired to liberate his MIDI controller from the confines of the DJ booth table during a set at the Mystic Garden Party festival.
“I felt so inspired and so uplifted to play music that I picked up my Oxygen 8 and held it in my arms the entire set,” Rich wrote in an email, ”This caught the interest of the dancing crowd and I achieved the highest amount of eye contact and personal exchange with the audience than I ever had before.”
Rich hacked together a Korg nanoKontrol, a USB hub, a guitar strap and some Max for Live patches with his original M-Audio Oxygen 8 to make this wearable, keytar-like controller. The ControlliTAR is far from a traditional keytar though, Rich uses it to control loop juggling, finger drumming, effect mashing, synth jamming and much more.
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Some of the most intriguing curiosities at the NAMM Show can be found deep down in the subterranean exhibit Hall E. This show hall is generally populated by newer and smaller companies that may not be as established as giants like Avid or Yamaha, but these companies can often be some of the most innovative. Exciting instruments like the Video Guitar from Visionary Instruments and the world famous Reactable lurk in the basement of the Anaheim Convention Center, as well as some nifty new controllerist gadgets. Here are two that stood out.
So it has a lot of knobs, pads, buttons and screens, but the Rhizome’s approach to control is really its most interesting feature. Most controllers control functions within a software DAW, you map a knob on your controller to a knob on your screen. The Rhizome sort-of is the DAW, or in other words, a controller with the software and computer built into it. I can definitely see the appeal of simply turning on a groove box and making music right away without having to plug in a bunch of cables and devices.
