Keith McMillen Instruments shared another sneak preview video of their upcoming K-Board Pro 4 Polyphonic Multidimensional Controller.
The K-Board Pro 4 is laid out like a traditional keyboard controller, but offers expressive control, per note, that’s not available with most keyboard controllers.
The video demonstrates three dimensions of expressive control:
- x-axis – left/right motion can be used to do things like vibrato, per note;
- y-axis – moving a finger towards or away from you can be used to control things like timbre;
- z-axis – pressure can be sensed per note and be used to change an individual note’s volume, brightness, modulation, etc.
The K-Board Pro 4 will be priced at US $495. Details on availabiity and specificiations are to come.
For those who wanted a cheaper alternative to the Roli Rise… here you go. Maybe it’s because I’m comparing it to the Rise in my mind but those keys don’t look terribly comfortable to play.
Agreed, those keys look super rigid. How are you supposed to get a sense of velocity?
I was mostly thinking about the edges of the keys, particularly black (er, blue?) keys. They look pretty sharp in the video. Like, I wouldn’t want to drag my finger down the keyboard in a Jerry Lee Lewis heat.
i think the velocity sense will come with a bit of time spent on it, since it does actually sense speed of attack.
but yeah could’ve made them a bit taller to give a normal feel maybe? we’ll see in the final product i guess.
also also also.. PLEASE include a normal midi port for this! I’ve always hated the tacky expander box. That would be a feature worthy of a ‘pro’ designation.
Looks like a very nice product at a good price.
It follows a traditional keyboard – in two out of three dimensions. The third dimension: key throw in this case; is missing from this keyboard. Therefore, if you are a player of traditional keyboards, this is probably a keyboard that should be thought of as a special, second controller, and not a replacement to your main gig rig.
I like that we are seeing new and expressive keyboards– that are coming in relatively affordable prices.
Because this is a Keith McMillen product, it is worth a very serious consideration! Wouldn’t it be cool if they made a 2-octave version of this for foot playing!!?
i like this. as far as the key comfort if its like the companies other products i would say its a nice feel.
the only thing that annoys me is the “pro” no one can thing outside the apple relm? but this is petty complaints
Didn’t look like the guy playing was having a very good time. You could really see the strain in his hands and fingers
Yeah, finger-bending at it’s best 😀
Looks like you have to press the rubber blocks as hard as you can to get a proper feedback (at 0:21).
USB only?
Seems like this is going to be the continuing saga for new tech; whether or not it will have 5-pin din.
I wonder if the bandwidth is such that it would choke the MIDI stream with lots of notes all running poly-AT streams. I’m guessing here, but it looks like the X & Y axis are global (all notes), and the Z is Poly AT (per note). So perhaps it wouldn’t be all that thick. That’s one area of MIDI that would be nice to expand on, more per-note CC streams.
Given the current rate of K-Mix development I’d expect this keyboard to ship sometime around 2027.
this plus analog 4 ooooooooh