Fur Elise on the AXiS 49

YouTube via JLMoriart | Feb 25, 2011 |

"A performance of Fur Elise on my Jammer, an isomorphic keyboard with the "Wicki-Hayden Note Layout", converted from an AXiS 49 from C-Thru Music. It's a little less polished than I'd like, but I need to move on to new projects- so here it is!

I've rearranged my keytops to fit the W/H layout, and I'm software freely available from Ken Rushton (aka MusicScienceGuy) whom you can email for more information.

More information on...

The original Jammer, a Thummer:
http://thummer.com/

The note layout:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicki-Ha...

The keyboard I've modified:
http://c-thrumusic.com/

MusicScienceGuy:
http://www.musicscienceguy.com/"

Halfway (Instrumental) Axis-49

YouTube via JLMoriart more vids here
"Instrumental version of my original piece "Halfway" Performed on the Axis-49 remapped to play in Wicki/Hayden (thummer) mode.

Just a quick upload to show I'm still playing.

But mostly for you tiger ;-)"

Thummer Demo

YouTube via JimPlamondon. via felix inferious.
"Melody with the right hand, accompaniment with the left, and expressive effects with your thumbs -- only the Thummer lets you do all that! See www.thummer.com for more information. Performed by Gavin Healy."

Riday T-91 Midi Controller - New Flickr Shot

flickr by floorvan.

Riday T-91
Midi Controller

Invented by Rick Riday,
the T-91 is a midi controller that uses his patented "unified keyboard" design. This design allows for identical fingering patterns for all 12 scales (12 major scales, 12 minor, 12 blues, etc.)


via Sameli.

Updates via the comments:
Via Carbon111:
"Its too bad but I don't think they ever went into production. I contacted Rick about twenty years ago and he sent me some promotional material...I think I've still got it somewhere."

Via divbyzero:
"Riday's patent sheds some light on the details of the keyboard. It's isometric like the Janko (Chromatone) and Hayden (Thummer), which makes transposition simple and shortens the learning curve compared to other nonstandard keyboards.

However, his choice of isometric offsets (go up by a half-step as you move one key to the right; go down by a whole step as you move up a row and half a key to the right) is a little odd. In particular, going down in pitch as you move up in row feels quite backwards. At least half-steps are on adjacent keys, unlike the Hayden.

I've posted this before, but I'll mention it again... my little free program qwertymidi is great for testing out experimental keyboard layouts like these."

The Thummer

Here's an interesting looking controller via Music Thing. Looking at the site I oddly found no mention of MIDI, only USB. See quote below. If that's the case, no using this to control my synths. : (



"Does the Thummer(tm)-Brand Jammer Produce Sound?

No, it does not produce any sound by itself. It must be connected to a personal computer (Mac, Wintel, or Linux) — via the prototype's included USB cable — to interpret its player's actions and generate musical sounds. This is very similar to an electric guitar, which needs a separate amp to produce useful sound. Future versions of the Thummer(tm)-brand jammer may include internal music synthesizers, but even then, the Thummer(tm)-brand jammer is so small that it has no room for high-quality speakers, so it would still require an external amp (or headphones)."

Thumtronics