Ursa Minor.wmv

YouTube via notepool2 | September 25, 2010

"A fast scan rate, hand-built velocity switches and advanced key-mechanics enables a level of velocity sensing unheard of on a multi-button MIDI controller until now. Choices of wieght and velocity setting extend to instant loudest and quietest notes, tracking the way you play.

Sorry about the speaker hum. By 4.00am it's easy to forget things and mess up levels while recording from a speaker with a mic in front, covered with a tea towel, plugged into a camcorder - it is for me, anyway!"

Hidden Animals.wmv

notepool2 | September 25, 2010

"Why 'Hidden Animals'? When I played back the footage, I noticed that the cat on the T-shirt I was wearing was leaping forwards as I leaned forward to start to play - purely acciddental!

This is an Opal Chameleon connected to a Roland VK-8M mondule, for my experiments with rhythm patterns and riffs in preparation for playing rock keyboard parts in my next band (when I get to build an Opal I can keep!)

I also took the opportunity to address forum writers who, new to the note layout, noticed that the 4th interval is not one of the keys adjacent to the tonic (of whichever key you're playing in). As with a conventional keyboard, you would normally play inversions while switching chords anyway, so it helps that on the sonome, the 4th minus an octave IS one of the keys adjacent to the tonic. Its location right under the tonic makes an inverted 4th with some bottom end eady and intuitive. Of you can invert the tonic and alternate fast with a root-position 4th.

I've tried to show all of this in the video, using my version of Spencer Davis 'Gimmie Some Lovin' as an example. I hope it helps new sonome users find ways to navigate fluently."