Machinewerks of Sheffield, UK has announced a Kickstarter project for the CS X51 USB/MIDI Control Surface, a new controller they say was ‘born out of the sheer frustration of not being able to find the Control Surface we wanted.’
Here’s a video introduction to the CS X51:
Machinewerks CS X51 Specifications:
- 28 x Potentiometer Rotaries: All fully assignable
- 7 x 45mm Potentiometer Sliders: All fully assignable
- 16 assignable buttons in a 4×4 matrix, each with a cool blue assignable LED (LEDs can respond to clip status messages)
- USB and 5 pin DIN MIDI In & Out for full bi-directional MIDI support
- 9v DC power connector for computerless setups
- Plug & Play: USB Powered*, no drivers required
- 100% programmable midi mapping to any hardware or computer
- MacOS, Windows & Linux Compatible
- Works out of the box with Ableton, Traktor, Reason, Cubase, Logic and any other programmable DAW
- Aluminium Body
- Anodised Body with Powder Coated Base
- Portable: 390mm x 184mm x 57mm Weighs 1.4kg
- RoHS compliant
- Designed & Built In Sheffield, UK
Details on the new controller are available at the project site.
via TheBlackDog
I really like controllers like these, and ones like Livid. It just seems they are priced slightly higher than I’m willing to pay. Im sure the quality warrants this though.
Enclosure sure looks nice, and it’s a good clean design, but let’s be honest – the first thing that’s going to fail on this are the faders from dust and oxidation, not the enclosure. Is there a lifetime warranty to back up their ‘built to last’ claim? That would sure go a long way toward justifying the price, and would absolutely one-up Livid, who iirc only offer 1 year.
This looks good. I’d like to see more synthesizers made out of metal instead of plastic too!
Livid called, they want their hardware back…
im kinda over all these generic do-it-all control surfaces. give me a controller that’s actually laid out like a synth control panel, like the old novation x-station, but with more knobs&sliders. i’d argue its a lot more intuitive than having to remember what is mapped where for each controlled app/plugin.
if it could be programable to send SYSEX i would consider purchasing it.
How is this supposed to compete with Behringer BCR-2000?
There will be a reason to create new variants of these boxes when they start sending OSC with higher resolution than the MIDI CC staircase.
Nice. Lots of knobs 🙂 One question though. Is the knobs fully rotary (that is, no beginning and end)? Like the Novation Impulse.
Great to see your project and to see it adding to Sheffields and the north of Englands musical /electronic legacy.
I hope one day you are in a position to make us a midi only sequencer ,just like the atari cubase .
Best of luck and great to see Northern projects and Northern accents on synthopia.
North of England home to,
808State,LFO,A Guy Called Gerald,Cabaret Voltaire,Baby Ford,Human League,Martin Hannet,Warp,Factory,Dead or Alive Smiths,Joy Division, etc etc etc
Slaughter and the dogs,Buzzcocks,Magazine,Frankie ,Heaven 17,Doves,Pulp oops yes and that twat called Paul Morley, but he is a southerner actually!!
Looks good, wish it was a little more thin though. Would also be nice if there were two models that offered notched pots @ 12 o’clock and smooth ones as well. Maybe add some lines around the pots as well for sake of reference.