The Monome project, a USB MIDI and OpenSoundControl control surface for music and art, was built on open source principles, on its users making the product better as they used it. Its community has already built custom housings and elaborate software setups. But a clone based on the Arduino microcontroller promises to do still more.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The “Arduinome” gifts the Monome with two new possibilities. First, it’s a breakthrough on the availability front: at a time when official Monome kits are backordered, it makes it easier to make your own Monome on a budget. Second, it makes hardware hacking on the Monome far easier, by allowing people to make microcontroller-level modifications on the relatively friendly Arduino platform. (The Arduino was designed not for electrical engineers, but for artists just dipping their toes into electronics, even for the first time.)

Now, if you went out and cloned, say, the latest Roland keyboard, they’d understandably take issue. But part of what tells you this is a different kind of product is that the Monome creators have actually taken an active interest in the Arduinome’s development. Support won’t go through the Monome team, and there are still plenty of reasons to buy the real thing, but true to those open principles, both projects stand to benefit.

I got the scoop on the details of this project, what it’s about, and the gory details of how caffeine can fuel a massive electronics project even with relative newcomers to the craft. Jordan Hochenbaum, a leader of the project, talks to CDM (with some additional comments by his partner in crime, Owen Vallis. (Jordan and Owen, students at CalArts, also won CDM’s Futuristic Design Challenge earlier this year — video of that coming soon, I swear!)

(Skip about two minutes into this video for some side-scrolling LED action.)

Arduinome Nerdscroll Demonstration from BricK Table on Vimeo.

Why clone the Monome? What’s special about this project?
The Monome represents not only a controller interface, but also a new way of thinking about interface design. The very heart of the Monome concept is its minimal, open-ended form. This ideology is reflected in Monome’s decision to make the firmware and software open-source. Coupling these ideas with the strong community development support in the Monome forum, it became clear that the Monome was the perfect interface to try and port to the Arduino microcontroller. What makes this project special is Monome’s willingness to make their controller open-source. No other manufacturer would dream of letting people see how their stuff works, or letting a bunch of curious individuals try to build a clone.