Beamer turned me on to the new Akai APC40 last weekend. It was just announced at NAMM and looks to be a great alternative to the Monome for Ableton Live. Seems like a safe bet as a VJ app controller as well. More Info
Akai APC40
01.22.2009
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Yea each of the buttons represent a clip and you can scroll around for even more clips(if your scene is that huge). Max for live comes with a mod file for the APC40 that turns the APC into a step sequencer like the monome. I’m pretty excited and saving up already!
Oh and there are some NAMM videos of this in use up on youtube now too.
sick…but monome still rules all though.
actually this AND a monome would be the ultimate tits…I’m shooting for that addition to the family!
yeah, monome certainly has it beat in the looks department.
First time I’ve been excited about a control surface for ages! It looks very nice 🙂
I’m currently building a Monome, should be awesome. It’s great because it can be used for more than just music; you can re-route the inputs to be anything, from mouse clicks to keyboard input. You can even add things like accelerometers and expand it with knobs and such. Also, all the firmware is open source, so if something isn’t implemented you can implement it yourself.
Exciting. As an ambient bedroom producer I am not really sure how much it can do for me production wise though, as I spend most of my time in arrangement view. So not at the top of my wishlist.
Anyone else laugh at his accent? It just sounded so German.
It looks amazing. Could be something I could use for sure!!! Has anyone touched it, I was wondering if the faders are well constructed? How precise are they?
I was really excited about the MPK49 when it came out, thinking it would be a higher quality solution to these software controllers, but the construction and feel is absolute junk. I can’t imagine this is any better. Lately I’ve been using the new Moog Phatty that’s USB over MIDI and let’s you bypass the synth and use as a controller only. It would be really cool to see someone like Moog make a more advanced controller like this APC40 with higher quality construction that you could control software to your heart’s content and still have it be a killer stand-alone instrument.
I CANT WAIT….
already got my pre-order in 😀
this combined with the new features in Live 8 (MAX/MSP integration!!!! collaboration! Full audio slicing support!)
its literally like they did brain surgery on me, discovered the things that i wanted most in a DAW, then secretly have been working on them before i could even realise i had though of them. Damn idea stealers… from the future…
love this blog by the way, so glad i stumbled across it
christian-
if it’s anything like the other akai controllers, it should be pretty solid. although I’ve only tried them out briefly, I really liked the feel of them, very solid and the controls are smooth and precise. much better build imo than any of the other controllers on the market in this price range.
So, here I was, mucking about in Illustrator. Figured out I felt like listening to some Tycho which shortly lead to a frantic investigation of your website looking for that, The Daydream mp3 download that for some reason I didn’t have but made a mental note of and I think to myself, time for some new Tycho music 😉 How’s it going with that bud, I know last time I asked it was way off, but what about that single you were arduously working on?
Also, I don’t know if you got my mail, or it’s not a high priority but I just to make sure you are aware of it, on your exhibit portfolio site, below the introduction you have a button that reads, “PORFOLIO”, missing a “T”.
He probably sounds German, cause he is German.
And the faders can be replaced, so you could install your own favorite fader inside if you wanted. Which I doubt many will do unless you’re into the whole scratch/DJ/Battle scene. Also ableton allows you set different settings to the faders for example mix curves, cut curves and I wouldn’t doubt if they expand this with live 8 seeing it now has fade curves in arrangement view.
Hey Scott, very cool to see you take note of this. My buddy Adam Looker was the main designer for this piece of gear.. check out his portfolio at http://www.adamlooker.com
cheers
James
i also am an ambient producer, but i perform out quite a bit. i’ve been looking for a controller that fits my needs for ages to no avail. i’m so sick of mousing around in ableton! this thing looks absolutely great to my eyes, and the fact that it’s hackable via the new max for live add-on is just…well, let’s just say i’m DAMN excited!
I spent 5 minutes with clicking on the fake youtube video until I recognized that it was just an image. ^^