Isomorphism FTW

[Martin Walker]

Excellent progress - oh, and like you I DO like the earlier box prototypes

Martin

[pierstitus]

I really do like the box myself too! And looking forward to experimenting with other self contained versions, and I hope to see more people build instruments with the Striso board as base.

[Martin Walker]

Hi pierstitus, and welcome to the SOS Forums!

Apologies for missing your previous post - it's always great to have the project creator on board

Martin

[BJG145]

I'm pleased to see that the Striso has reached its funding target. Piers has been baking to celebrate.

[BJG145]

Just discovered this lovely rendition of a Bach piece on Accordina.

https://youtu.be/XKGiDYlIQ6k?t=90



(Richard Galliano...I like. Great name too.)

https://youtu.be/ux6bUcfKrTI?t=1927

[ManFromGlass]

Update on Lumi keyboards.
UPS finally delivered my Lumi keyboards. So far I like them, almost full size keys, feel pretty good to play. Much better than those tiny keys on other small units. I’m not a keyboard player by training so have no muscle memory of weighted keys etc. I grew up with unweighted synth keys. The general build is of some kind of plastic that feels tough but I would want to protect them during travel, rather than just throw them in with the other gear.

At first I missed a pitchbend and mod wheel but without them the compact size is actually a bonus. The light show is amusing and if I were to use the units for triggering samples and other things the ability to colour keys to remind me of splits etc is a nice option, but I haven’t tried that yet. The lighted keys add cool factor which can be inspirational for writing music in the dark! Triggering through Bluetooth shows latency when triggering percussion or patches with sharp attack. For precision work I would connect using the included cable or learn to play ahead of the beat.

Now the unfortunate part - there were some tolerance build issues in the Mexican plant. When you connect 2 together (I bought 2 so I could have 4 octaves) the first one is supposed to automatically turn on the others as you link them together. Mine don’t so back to Roli they go. So far Roli are being helpful about this. No idea if I have to pay for shipping. I sure hope not. Due to the current plague it took 3 months for the units to show up. I hope it’s not that long again as I want to be using these. I may do another update when the new units show up.

[The Elf]

So far Roli are being helpful about this.

Glad your experience differs from mine. I'm having the devil's own job trying to get my 6-month old Seaboard 49 replaced...

[ManFromGlass]

Oooh. Perhaps I spoke too soon.
That’s not right about your keyboard. It’s not an inexpensive unit. I have the smaller one. What went wrong on yours? Just in case mine has the same issue.

[The Elf]

The silicone surface has gradually become detached from the surface underneath. It began with a couple of notes in the middle of the keyboard and has now spread to all but the top and bottom handful of notes.

It's now at a point where the surface moves about a quarter of an inch before contact is made, and a couple of notes at the lower part of the keyboard have begun playing spurious notes on their own.

I also have the smaller 25-note version and that one is absolutely fine.

[BJG145]

I just discovered an introductory video on the forthcoming Lumatone by the polychromatic adventurer Dolores Catherino. I was interested in her comments on how it's the first microtonal instrument she's looked at which does away with a chromatic overlay. I wasn't sure I needed one but she's convinced me. (There's a recent performance here.)

Naturally she had to come up with a new system for scoring these microtonal pitches in colour to match the keyboard. Obvious.

[BJG145]

Not really a fan of the Joyst JV-1, but I'm a chronicler. We're meant to be impartial. So...



Kickstarter

The walnut edition isn't so bad.

[Martin Walker]

The walnut edition isn't so bad.

Now that's positively tasty!

Martin

[ManFromGlass]

Impartial? Me? Never! I am guided by what I perceive as inspiration potential and a bit of fun factor!

[BJG145]

Polyhedra have released a new isomorphic keyboard app called Formkey.

https://www.formkey.app/



(Other software options include Musix Pro by Shiverware, and the free sequencer Hexcel for Reaktor.)

PS

Since the image links in the original post are now broken, I wonder if a moderator might be kind enough to replace them with working ones such as these.

https://img.audiofanzine.com/images/u/p ... 188192.jpg

https://www.woodbrass.com/images/SQUARE ... H+S+BK.JPG

[zenguitar]

Just worked through the thread and the links in the OP are working fine for me.

Andy

[BJG145]

...thanks Zen. When I look at this in Chrome, the first post looks like this...


...missing the image for the Rainboard and the small Dualo. In Firefox, the Rainboard shows but the small Dualo still doesn't.

Actually those two replacement URLs I posted above don't seem to work any better, but I've put them on Imgur and they work from there with img tags.

https://i.imgur.com/6rEdPjJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4pa998x.jpg

[zenguitar]

The second one wasn't working when looked again. So I've replaced both as requested and they appear to be working fine now for me.

Andy

[BJG145]

[BJG145]

Here's a video from yesterday with Mike Battaglia playing a bit of Herbie Hancock in 31-TET on the wonderful microtonal Lumatone.

https://youtu.be/gKT3W2aF4LA

This thing has 280 analogue keys which work with Hall effect sensors. I picked up a couple of these on eBay and have been trying to figure out the mechanism with Arduino...no luck yet, it's a work in progress...

[Drew Stephenson]

It's amazing how quickly my mind goes from 'equal temperament sounds weird' to 'that sounds really harmonious'.
Seems to take about 30 seconds to reset.

[BJG145]

This was today's project. The gadget du jour is an Axis 49; currently practising this on buses and trains.



They're out of production, but I thought I'd try and make a copy of one. So today I started by modelling one of the buttons.





It's only a small start, but I'm quite pleased with that so far.

[Martin Walker]

Wow - is there nothing you won't tackle Ben?

(answers on a postcard please to the usual address)

Martin

[Folderol]

That looks very nice

[BJG145]

I've been looking out for the rare/discontinued Axis 64 for years now. I thought I might be within reach when one turned up at Vemia a few weeks ago, but was outbid at £1100, plus fees and delivery. That's just too much.

There's another one for sale at the moment on Reverb, but it's even dearer at £126K...

...behold the original prototype for the Axis 64. Now, that's cool.



https://reverb.com/uk/item/47445296-the ... ru-axis-64

* * * * * *

There are currently only two hexagonal MIDI controllers commercially available; the Lumatone and the Microzone, both well over $3K. But I still think the Axis 64 had something special going for it, and I'm daydreaming about trying to build a clone. I think I found just the keys for it.

https://wooting.io/lekker

This is a new Hall-effect analogue key in the Cherry MX format. (The Lumatone uses Hall-effect keys. These produce a continuous range of values rather than on/off, thus velocity.)

To my surprise, I recently found these are already available to order, and comparatively cheap. I've ordered half a dozen to start with, though if this works out I'll need a few hundred more. (And a crash course in Arduino key-scanning libraries.)

[Folderol]

Looks very interesting. Where are they actually available from?