Reader Gil Assayas (GLASYS) has wowed with his ‘Finger Twister’ approach to synth performance, combining finger drumming and synth work, with some impressive left-handed chops.
Now Assayas let us know about a new MIDI controller, created in collaboration with controllerism guru Moldover, that’s tailored to his style.
“I just received my new custom left hand controller,” he notes. It’s “built by Moldover out of an Akai LPK 25 ,using arcade buttons and a Teensy as the brain.”
Assayas gives the new controller a quick demo, in the video above, using NI Battery 4 for drums and a Boomstar 4075 for the bass sound.
“I need help naming it,” he adds, “So would love to hear your reader’s suggestions!”
If you’ve got suggestions for naming this controller, weigh in with a comment below. And, if you’re going to the 2018 NAMM Show, Assayas will be performing with it at the Polyverse booth.
Woah, yes. Maybe name it the woah yes.
it’s a midi fighter with a keyboard! the keyfighter!
A painists tool with arcade buttons….call it “The Arcadist”
The Clide Copeland (The Stewart Stubblefield?)
The Lefty McHolyFuckHowDoYouDoThat
The IGMBRBTJTC (“I’ve got more big red buttons than Jong-un + Trump combined”)
The Fingdrum
Drummy McDrumface.
This nailed it.
Bombo Genesis
“One finger at a time.”
Button Beats
The Jake Tapper.
Finger Banger
this is clip triggering not finger drumming, there is no velocity or volume control, dont see the point of this at all.
Humdrum
It’s finger drumming. Just like on an MPC with pad velocity locked.
Think if triggered that many clips in succession it would sound like a lost My Bloody Valentine tape, played through a broken Marshall stack.
Humdrum is probably just trolling.
Clip triggering would involve whole phrases & loops, not single drum hits and single bass notes. He’s doing a pretty deft linear track with only one note at a time, and is pretty much in the pocket.
Your point about the lack of velocity/dynamics is spot on. But that is as much a comment on that particular style of music which doesn’t really have dynamics.
There are many examples of people playing very expressive drum grooves on a keyboard only– or on velocity sensing pads. There’s not much gained from the red arcade buttons, other than the “aesthetics”… such as they are.
Actually, the reason I went with arcade buttons instead of pads is not because of the aesthetics. If you check out my other videos, you’ll see that I’ve been using pads up until now (MPK Mini), yet I rarely enabled velocity. It’s too unreliable for this style of playing, and it was very difficult to get consistent results. The pads would constantly “flam” and trigger unwanted notes too which is why I decided to switch to arcade buttons, they simply feel a lot better to me and are less fatiguing to play in this particular style.
Thanks for the feedback!
fair play, i withdraw my statement.
Excellent. I look forward to seeing this at NAMM if I can find you! 🙂
The point is it’s awesome/fun and it isn’t discredited due to lack of velocity sensitive pads. Talent is talent it doesn’t have to have a point.
Trapper 🙂
ok
def
fingerbang
keyfighter
or i say
the presherpushaaa
lol
The FingerBlaster pro
Thanks for the name suggestions! So far my favorites are “Arcadia” and “Synistra”. 🙂
Still undecided though.
I appreciate the share, Synthtopia!
Taptopia
Game Overdub (“Moldoverdub” would be a cool instrument too)
Red Masher
GLASYstem 16
ArKeys
Nukem Pro
Hexadecimator
I’d love to read more about the construction of the instrument.
tapcade
artecla
smashover
Beatdialer
Because the performance looks somewhat like dialing on an old phone.
hadoukeys
Circlepusher
Pretty amazing little kit. This thing would work well mapped to VirtualDJ. I can imagine finger drumming with the sampler in Version 8!