Sennheiser Research, Palo Alto, showing prototype MIDI wireless microphone @ loopfest

Andy from Sennheiser in Palo Alto, CA showed us a new toy at the Loopfest, Santa Cruz – almost for singers, loopers and experimental musicians (so possibly not really synth related) but anyway – interesting stuff.. no, it’s not a controller but a controller with microphone that can be used to control a looper (like looperlative, ableton live etc.) what it can do right now – they’re open to ideas & improvements…

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Madrona Labs Soundplane Controller

Madrona Labs Soundplane Demos at Decibel 2011 – YouTube. since Mr.Linn presented his Linnstrument and somewhere around NOW there’s a hand full of new controllers, that try to re-arrange the way to play melodies and scales – from the Linnstrument, to Buchla Thunder to Eigenharp and the Xylosynth, here’s the Madrona Labs which reminds a bit of an alternate Haken Continuum  – listen and watch. lots of fun, though. this one has sensor fields that are also pressure sensitive but not continously – nevertheless is seems to have position sensors per…

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Alchemy Mobile Synth App for iOS

  Alchemy Mobile Synth App for iOS – iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. Alchemy is a synth with additive and sampling granular-style methods, they are offering those apps as sort of a launcher, not as a replacement of the one on standard computers since it is still hard to render those additive, spectral sounds in realtime. so this one is something like some others did – a remote control for important parameters? no – it plays SOME sounds, lets you set ADSR envelopes and most important things. so it is meant to be…

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Steinberg CMC controllers – hardwareized Cubase

CMC modular controller system – are a set of little controllers – the most interesting may be the ribbons with LED in it, at least there is also a 16 Pad Drum controller – all of them seem to come from Yamaha at least (since they are the big company behind it all). I don’t know if they work with Live or Logic ;) the idea behind it is – make your own controller surface for Cubase, add more of one type – there’s a pad, a pot and a slider…

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Akai APC20/40 Effect Sequencer and access for Ableton Live with Max

AKAI APC Effect Sequencer by Mark Egloff this is IDM / Glitch Sequencer from Akai and Ableton with Max4Live, note this is only for Akais APCs, maybe Launchpads CAN be adapted after clicking a lot of things in the Max Editor. That Patch is free and can be downloaded here http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device.php?id=879 what is it? it’s sort of a motion recording or better animation of effects – you will find a TR style chase light but it’s just to show the „cursor“  – you can access the effect in the chain represented by…

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