“The drum machine should be renamed what it is: a rhythm synthesizer. I call that rear view hearing. The drum machine isn’t a drum machine, there’s no drums in it – it’s pulses and signals synthesized into new pulses and new signals. There’s no drums in it. “
– Kodwo Eshun, author of ‘More Brilliant Than The Sun’.
File under boxes that beat, a physical programmable drum machine designed and made by Andy Huntington. No mouse clicks, beats are tapped on various extended nodes, which then mechanically form that rhythm, which is amplified by attaching the node to various pbjects – eg an upside down cup, bottle or metal tin etc. Video will explain it better.
Jazz mutant’s Lemur hardware controller provides a programmable touchscreen, which means you can reconfigure to suit your needs – 16 sliders one time, 8 knobs, triggers and scratch pad the next – in other words, a controller that aims to be as versatile as your software.
Going a step further along the path of customisation is the monome 40h – a reconfigurable grid of sixty-four backlit buttons, with USB 2 and midi /osc functionality. It is also made however, with an open source, hackable firmware and software interface – a philosophy which should see the device used in all manner of ways, and hopefully expanding beyond it’s current limited edition production. See the demo video to see how fun it looks as a step sequencer or remix tool.
Still waiting on that cable-less future. One step closer: this wireless midi controller.