Thursday, July 19, 2007
Axis 64 Midi Controller
YouTube via drbrainwork.
"Designer Peter Davies threw out preconceptions of what a music keyboard should be and designed a layout based on the Harmonic Table. According to C-Thru Musiic, the arrangement of notes helps you understand note relationships and create as you never have before."
14 comments:
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MATRIXSYNTH - EVERYTHING SYNTH
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Ha! He busted out spirits in the material world at the end! I want to see someone devastate this thing midi'd up to a wall of analog fatness rather than the lame el-cbeapo General MIDI nonsense he had.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear some velocity sensitivity. Sounds like it's very click-on/click-off. No delicacy?
ReplyDeleteThe clickyness of the keys also bugs me.
But the idea is great. I would buy one, but for the clicky keys and the apparent lack of demonstrable velocity or aftertouch.
Oh man. As someone who has trouble with 11th chords on a traditional keyboard, this really wets my whistle. A little pricey for a controller, though.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the clickyness. I wonder if it's really that loud, or if it was just the mic placement.
According to the manual, the board does have velocity sensitivity, with a choice of a few different curves. No aftertouch on the keys, but you can assign wheels/encoders to transmit MIDI aftertouch.
The man giving the demo is the c-thru-music head honcho, Mr Andrew Llewellyn. I have one of these wonderful controllers sitting here next to me and I have been neglecting my traditional linear keyboard controller ever since. the clickiness you hear is most definitely the mic he's using. my unit has no such clicks. of course it will never replace my weighted linear board for piano or rhodes playing, but beyond those few traditional assignments the axis64 has replaced it for the majority of my controller purposes. its also highly effective for drum programming and for triggering clips in live.
ReplyDeleteUnderworld use one of those. Or at least they have one.
ReplyDeleteI emailed them for pricing info a few weeks back. it costs like $1700. I told them my price range for such a product would be about $200. they wrote this in response:
ReplyDelete"The AXiS-64 has been very well received as a composition tool - as you say, it has a great new layout which gives you a different approach to your usual way of composing.
We actually have a second product in development which is a 'home user' version - which is a smaller, USB MIDI interface - this will be much more in your price range - we are looking to launch later this year - perhaps keep an eye on our website for more information on this in the coming months."
Bery nice. Too bad it's so spendy... has to be under $500 for me to try something like this.
ReplyDeleteI really like this controller, but at that price it's a no go. Guess I will have to wait and see with this USB home version..
ReplyDeleteburstgenerator: cool. I"d love to try it sometime.
ReplyDeleteexcellent, send me your haken continuum and i'll send you the axis64. we can both try new things. if i forget how to return your controller or leave the country altogether with it, i apologize ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteI tried to post a response for you yesterday, doktor future, but somehow it didn't work; I'll try it again:
ReplyDeleteWhile the hardware looks pretty nice, this kind of keyboard is not unique; it is a fairly standard isomorphic offset grid layout. Specifically, it is isomorphic 1-4, meaning that as you move one button to the right, the pitch goes up by 1 half step, and as you move one row upwards, the pitch goes up by 4 half steps.
Common related isomorphic grid and offset grid layouts include the following:
1-5: bass fretboard
1-7: violin fretboard
2-1: von Janko piano
2-6: Hayden duet concertina
You can simulate all of these very easily using software that maps the keys on a standard qwerty typing keyboard into MIDI notes. My own implementation of this, qwertymidi is free, and allows you to create you own custom mappings for further experimentation.
I took conservatory accordion (parents eastern european), so I am drawn to this type of layout.
ReplyDeleteTo see the AXiS-64 being shown to it's full potential check out Jordan Rudess on Youtube!
ReplyDeleteIt is truly Universal in it's language. This is a very important keyboard because it's the only live instrument that makes no discrepancy between tones. The problem with even todays music theory standard itself is that, for example, C and C# are completely arbitrary names. C# SHOULD have it's own name, as it is it's own person, it's own energy. But it doesn't. We have gone gone away from this type of thinking. If JS Bach had seen this he would have had much to say about it.
ReplyDelete