Create Digital Music » Russian Programmable Calculator, Controlling Ableton Live

Nov 18 2008

Russian Programmable Calculator, Controlling Ableton Live

I wondered if anyone else had used calculators as music controllers. The answer? But of course. Here’s a classic Russian calculator model controlling arrangements in Ableton Live. It appears in this example as though this is working as a USB (QWERTY) keyboard substitute, rather than as a MIDI controller, but you get more of the same potential from all those wonderful buttons.

This find comes to us from Toyo Bunko of Noise.io – themselves lovers of mobile technology, having built a sophisticated soft synth for the iPhone. Toyo writes:

The page (in Russian) : http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124.html

And the video (instant download link) is here: http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124-a-dl.html

([Credited as] created by Zinus of "Diver Group").

The calculator model is Elektronika MK-52, it’s quite famous. More info on this calculator can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-52

He managed to connect the calculator via a USB interface which he took out from an old USB keyboard. So it basically acts like a keyboard controller.

If you’re out there, we’d love to hear more (or from anyone who can translate the Russian here). I expect I’m not the first to point to this, but the calculator music – by popular demand – continues!

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13 Comments

nobody

Hi Peter,

if you only could read the comments to that post!

It’s fabulous!

So sad I’m not that mighty in english to translate it :(

November 18, 2008 @ 5:12 pm

urri

I think this is fake

November 18, 2008 @ 5:13 pm

nobody

No, it’s not.

It’s just a substitute of keyboard keys with keys of the calculator

November 18, 2008 @ 5:22 pm

Peter Helms

Hi Peter
As you maybe know the russians are a quite poetic people..:) the text says:(Directly translated)
“In the beggining it was freezing
Then came the pre new years house cleaning.
Then a programmable microcalculator fell out of the closet.
After that a genius qwerty usb keybord fell out.
They fell out on the top of each other and stayed like that for a couple of minutes.
And they exchanged their fluids.
Now the calculator has an USB interface, but the keyboard lacks its brains.
But the most important thing: atleast now the program ableton Live can be adressed in its human session language”

the folowing coments are too amazing and will only work in russian..
great stuff:)

November 18, 2008 @ 9:36 pm

samu

I want a Curta-based Live controller. Please, someone, anyone!

November 18, 2008 @ 10:20 pm

Luca De Rosso

It looks interesting to me! Is quite useful to have a grid based interaction for samples, especially using Ableton.
The only problem is that, having a device which is viewed by the laptop as a keyboard makes the real keyboard almost useless since the visual map is different and you risk to mess up everything! But I like this tests anyway!

November 19, 2008 @ 4:22 am

Carl

Keyboard as oscillator – no vid yet
http://www.fundamentalfrequency.com/hardware/canola/
The layout of the notes makes some things really hard but encourages other, less usual intervals

November 19, 2008 @ 11:03 am

Carl

Sorry, that should be, “calculator as oscillator”

November 19, 2008 @ 11:04 am

regend

wait…why would you want to controller ableton live when you can control a Soyuz with device?

November 19, 2008 @ 11:51 am

Peter Kirn

@regend: Why choose?

November 19, 2008 @ 11:56 am

Andy

Does the calculator still work, or did they have to gut it?

November 19, 2008 @ 2:52 pm

Zinus

Hallo!
Sorry all fo my bad english.

We a UKRAINIANS! Russian language at our site is for them, who come in without knowledge about our Country and our language.
Welcome to UA!

About MK52:
his buttons is in positions like clips in Ableton Live, so this was a target in creation.
:) bad kbd -> good organized controller.

February 20, 2009 @ 5:53 am

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