Keith McMillen Instruments announced over the weekend that founder Keith McMillen has died.

Keith McMillen (1957-2024) was an electronic musician and composer that explored the cutting edge of electronic music performance, and over four decades created new instruments and tools for electronic music.

In 1979, he founded Zeta Music, and created new guitar effects, the first programmable MIDI audio mixer, and modern violins for the likes of Jean-Luc Ponty and Laurie Anderson. He’s also founded BEAM, a non-profit dedicated to promoting music that explores new technologies.

But McMillen was best known as the head of Keith McMillen Instruments, a company that’s created a wide variety of expressive MIDI controllers, like the QuNeo pad controller and the QuNexus keyboard controller; and the unique K-Mix audio interface.

Much of McMillen work explored the possibilities of using new materials in electronic music gear. Many of KMI’s designs eliminate the moving parts of traditional designs, and replace them with state-aware multi-touch ‘smart fabric’. As a result, they combine the flexibility of virtual interfaces, but retain the tactile benefits of traditional designs.

In our 2016 interview with McMillen, he argued that modern electronic instruments should combine traditional expressiveness with new power:

“Something I realized not too long ago is, as we’re making this transition, trying to get all of the basic archetypal musical forms of play, that some people lost things once they plugged into a computer.

A drummer is a really good example Drummers are used to getting a lot of subtlety out of their acoustic drums and have a very intimate relationship with it. They can use their thumbs to stretch the skin before they hit it. They had all of this subtlety. Then, once they plugged in with a drum controller, they lost it, most of it. It was reduced to the on and off basics that is the foundation and entry point for a MIDI instrument.

It’s really wonderful to watch these people light up when they’re able, now, to play with all the subtlety and nuance on an electronic instrument that they have spent their 10,000 hours learning on acoustic instruments.”

Ultimately, McMillen’s interest in new electronic music tools was driven by his passion for pushing the envelope on music performance, which he saw as one of the defining challenges for electronic musicians:

“Being able to transition from amplified acoustic instruments into a new era of music where the computer is an interactive participant in a performance is significant.

Pretty much everything is organized around the theme of being able to play live computer music in an ensemble. It’s a complicated request that requires many components. And I’ve been chipping away at it for 30+ years. The vision gets clearer as I get closer to the goal.”

Keith McMillen also looked for ways to apply the technology KMI developed beyond music. His latest venture, Sensible Robotics, focuses on using Smart Fabric to make ‘robot skin’.

Here’s what he shared about this, earlier this year:

“Humanoid robotics is at a threshold, signaling a critical phase for the industry. Tesla, Dyson, Google, OpenAI, and Boston Dynamics – are all investing heavily in humanoid robotics.

There is an acute shortage of labor for jobs in healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, and more. Humanoid robots have the potential to solve this problem but lack one necessary capability – the human touch.”

McMillen argued that Sensible Robotics offers the only viable solution for this, and has been working with several tech companies to explore the possibilities of smart fabric for robotics.

KMI has shared an official obituary for McMillen at their site.

If you’d like to find out more about Keith McMillen and his work, see these interviews:

• Keith McMillen on the Arts + Music + Technology Podcast #54
• Keith McMillen On Kickstarting A Music Controller Revolution
• Keith McMillen On The QuNexus And Why New Music Needs New Instruments