For this month’s installment of Beat Artillery, I just wanted to talk a little about controllers. Do you remember the days when performing music live with a laptop and a midi controller was kind of a rare occurrence? Well, it’s pretty much the norm nowadays… and with electronic music becoming more and more popular, more and more controller options are popping up.
I saw this thing a few months back and thought it looked really cool…. the QuNeo.
The QuNeo is on some crazy pressure sensitive color-changing tip, which I guess is good for understanding velocities and all…. but if you watch the video on that sweetwater page, you can also have those multiple led’s on each pad act like positioners, for knowing where you are in a loop. It seems like the QuNeo was definitely built with Ableton Live in mind (like most controllers out there.) (Sells for around $200.)
Another controller that I’ve seen in action lately that is probably one of the nicer builds is the Ohm 64 from Livid.
As you can see… the Ohm 64 has a lot of different types of controls, plus it’s built inside a really nice, sturdy wood enclosure. If you’re looking for something that should last you a long time… the Ohm 64 might be your controller. (Sells for around $600.)
Now… why am I talking about controllers… well it’s definitely one of the big sellers in music production nowadays, and I was just reminiscing the other day about when we used to do the laptop battles in Philly, I did the one in Seattle, blah blah blah.. and thought, you know, back then… there really weren’t too many options for midi controllers with knobs, faders, sliders, etc…. because it was such a new thing to get on stage and perform with one. But now, it’s so commonplace, that even wedding dj’s run music off of their computers with controllers.
This all being said, I’m looking at incorporating my iPad into my dj/live setup in the near future, and have been looking at the pros and cons of the Lemur app and running the much cheaper Touch OSC. Still not sure which I’m going to go with, Lemur does seem to have a heads up in its control options, editor and connectivity… but at $50, it’s definitely the most expensive controller option on the app store. If anyone’s used either and has some suggestions… shoot me a message in the comments.
touchABLE is a really good one for ableton. i have both touchOSC and touchable and i prefer touchable because its like have a touch screen interface for ableton. pretty dope, only 25 bucks too.
i also have the akai apc 20, and the akai mpd 32, and out of all of those, i still prefer touchable because of the navigation through the software. if you think controllerism is a crazy new thing, check this out…http://www.amazon.com/Numark-iDJ-PRO-Premium-Controller/dp/B006Z9D9UI/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1349472841&sr=1-4
yeah i’ve seen that Numark iPad thing. thanks for the comments man… will have to check out Touchable!
Welding a chromatic keyboard to a control surface has turned out to be a winning formula — from cheerfully cheap, plasticky jobs with 25 keys up to fairly serious 88-note weighted action controllers. Add more knobs, and the formula becomes hard to beat. Novation discovered this with their Remote 25, reviewed in Sound On Sound back in the August 2003 issue (see http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug03/ articles/novationremote25.htm ). Compact, and perfect for desktop or portable music, the Remote offered a commendably high number of physical controls in that small space, and Novation later reproduced the control set in longer keyboards, too (Remotes 49 and 61 respectively).