One of the coolest things we saw at the NAMM Show this year was a new MIDI controller introduced by C-Thru Music, the bizarre AXiS-64 MIDI controller.
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.
Words don’t really do the controller justice. Fortunately, C-Thru Music provided us with a video that shows how the new controller works.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Completely bizarre!
Looks like it would take a long time to figure out, but also like it would make playing some things really easy.
Wow! I love how it can do one-handed chords and easy glissandos. The one thing that seems missing is velocity-sensitivity?
The AXIS-64 turned up when I was browsing around looking at Tenori-On pages. These two and the Genosys Octopus are fascinating (and expensive) non-traditional controllers. One of these days, i will buy one. Why? I am starting to enjoy the DIMENSIONALITY of playing in 2D rather than a traditional keboard. Inspired by first by the Genosys and then these products, I bought two Korg padKontrols (32 velocity sensitive pads, each tunable to a range of notes) and have been composing pieces played on the 4×8 pad array. Connected to these are a Novation X-Station 25, Dave Smith Prophet ’08, Alesis Micron and Roland Fantom-X6. The ability to structure compositions in a different space, using layers, splits, arpeggiators, gated synth patterns and drum kits, and jam MIDI from channel to channel at the synth, makes for some very rich pieces, even when playing only eight to 16 pads at a time. All of these products are inspiring…but I want more than they can yet do! And I absolutely believe they will get there.