birdkids, in collaboration with formlabs, has announced °Grid, a new controller designed to give you tactile control over mobile applications.
They’ve shared a video, embedded above, that demonstrates pairing °Grid via Bluetooth BLE to Apple’s GarageBand on an iPhone.
- MIDI is transmitted to the App to control the stock lead sound.
- The MIDI is pipelined to an external Filter Plug-In’s automation.
- The plug-in processes Audio from GarageBand for additional Cutoff parameter control modulated by the built-in Accelerometer in °Grid.
Features:
- A cross-platform, companion App visually maps parameters to pads and enables color-coding as well as saving presets for instant recall to control any Bluetooth or Wi-Fi enabled, MIDI / OSC compatible App or external Hardware.
- Lightweight enclosures, made out of biodegradable materials in multiple color finishes offer individual style choices.
- High-capacity, built-in, rechargeable Li-Ion battery
Pricing and Availability
Availability of °Grid will be announced at the End of January 2020. MSRP from 89 EUR. See the birdkids site for additional details
whoa looks futuristic, price good too •?•
Kinda dinky. Limited and cheap looking. You can spend a bit more and grab the Nanokey Studio by Korg, bluetooth MIDI, 8knobs, more “keys”, drum pads and an x/y pad, arp, chord mode, scale mode, superior integration with gadget…idk..
Very clean design, intuitive interface with perfect size! Well done birdkids
Great price of the controller filling the gap on the market
Is it enough of an advantage over just touching the screen of your device? I guess you could use this portable device to walk away from your other portable device– as opposed to being tethered to your portable device which is tethered to your sound system.
That’s a very good question – you know that feeling when a melody, beat or sound just incessantly haunts you? I used to have it all my life, and boy did I have instances where I just needed to get to the studio ASAP.
Sure laptops came along eventually, so let’s say half a studio shaved-off right there, then iPads and finally my phone is capable of almost all I would ever need to jot that idea down, on the spot – but I NEED to feel those keys, pads, that pitch and parameter modulation, it’s part of the idea, the fun the spontaneity.
As cheesy as it might sound, the human touch is what we believe is crucial to really get the full experience.
The next J Dilla, Björk, Kanye are already somewhere out there at High-school, making beats during class break, with a pair of Bluetooth speakers, a smartphone and more talent than there’s water in the Pacific.
And we’re gonna work extra hard on enabling those kids with the instruments to express their passion & share their vision with the world. We’re gonna make these tools insanely intuitive, fun to use, adaptable and affordable AF. Because that’s how real education is supposed to work, it triggers your curiosity, individuality and creativity – the rest follows as you progress. And we’re adamant about the tools being accessible to every soul on this planet, in every sense of the word.
We come from a very very specialized niché, standing on the shoulders of giants we had a lot to prove and pay homage to, and even though we’ve left a sizeable footprint in the domain of analog sound-synthesis over the last five years, the mission objective is all about encouraging creative expression in the broadest form possible. We feel like the journey has just begun, and we have so so much to do.
In the broadest terms, the series is about tactile expression in the 21st Century, our focus will be on augmenting mainstream technologies with our Human-Machine-Interfaces — to enable intuitive learning through a combination of auditory, kinaesthetic, and visual techniques.
Best of all, almost everything you need is probably already in your pocket, and it only gets better.
Sincerely yours, Mike from birdkids
Thanks for that inspiring reply, Mike. Always nice to hear from developers here.
Seems like the advantages you are describing are that it is tactile, portable, affordable, and more satisfying to use.
I proclaim that touch screens are vastly overrated– with the full knowledge that they are captured the imaginations of a generation. People do amazing things with them and don’t struggle with them as I do. However, a touchscreen is a less-responsive track pad where you put your hand over your display and block what you are trying to see/control.
I suppose devices that let you get around that are worthwhile.