Saturday Synth Porn: This video offers a first look at Alexander Randon’s Kaossonome MIDI controller – a new DIY electronic music controller inspired by both the Korg Kaoss Pad and the monome.
Here’s what Randon has to say about the new Kaossonome:
The Kaossonome is my first electronic music controller design. It interfaces the musician via a touchscreen, resting on top of a 256 LED matrix, and eight rotary encoders with push?buttons. Enclosed within an aluminum front panel, a dark wooden frame, and a clear Plexiglas back panel, the controller is protected from external forces and is less than an inch thick.
The touchscreen can be controlled with either a finger or a stylus and the knobs turn and toggle with ease. The Kaossonome powers and transmits serial data over USB. The serial data is then intercepted by a modified version of ArduinomeSerial, which transforms the data into MIDI and OSC. The software savvy electronic musician can design intermediate software devices to grab data from the device, route touch-screen presses and rotary encoder changes to musically defined parameters, and then send data back to the device to control the LEDs.
nspired by Korg’s Kaoss Pad and the Monome, the Kaossonome features Kaoss Pad-like sampling programs and is fully Monome 256 compliant. Additional programs include an algorithmic step sequencer, a beat synced sample chopping performance controller, and many more.
Randon is planning to sell Kaossonome kits. If you’re interested, check out his site.
