The grid is in. While the monome remains the standards bearer for hardware with grids of buttons on it, arrays of buttons are suddenly everywhere, in the commercial Akai APC40 and Novation Launchpad, and, from Livid Instruments, the Ohm64 and now the Block. I think it’s a real compliment to the monome’s creators – and the community that has authored ingenious open software for the monome – that there is this excitement around the design.

The latest entry is Livid’s Block, a compact, aluminum-and-wood controller that’s easy to carry and which weighs less than 3 pounds. It’s not a monome – it eschews the monome’s stringent minimalist design aesthetic and adds knobs on top, faders on the side. That layout has made the M-Audio Trigger Finger a blockbuster hit, so I think it could attract people who want more than just buttons. (That’s why choice is generally a good thing.) But just as importantly, the Block takes cues from the monome beyond the skin-deep. As with the Ohm64, Livid is working to open-source both the guts of the hardware and the software on the computer. The instruments are made by hand using sustainable materials and finishes, manufactured in Texas in their own shop rather than the lowest bidder overseas. The hardware itself encourages hacks and customization. These are principles championed by the monome’s Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain, and they’re badly in need of some company. Livid, like those monome creators, is a handful of individuals rather then a big company, but they give us new hardware that embodies sustainability, openness, and local production – and that makes the monome and its principles stronger. (Livid has been crafting performance hardware and Max patches for many years.) And while this bus-powered USB MIDI device doesn’t yet support (OSC) OpenSoundControl, that could come – without sacrificing conventional MIDI connections to outboard gear when you don’t have the computer connected. (Clarification: as with the Ohm64, OSC support is not yet available but should be possible. Stay tuned.)

Basic specs:

The “space bassoon” Eigenharp seems to have landed from another planet. Today, I’ve got good news: it’s bringing alien gifts with it. By next year, both the software and the high-performance protocol the instrument uses will be open source. Taken together with other advancements in the open source community and with protocols like OSC, that could mean we’re at the vanguard of a golden age for more open, more intelligent, more expressive digital instruments.

Genuinely new music controllers made available commercially don’t come along very often. So this week’s news of a strange but wonderful-looking instrument shaped like a bassoon with customizable key controls turned many heads. With high-resolution, high-frequency data and reliance on the computer for everything from sound generation to mapping the keys to different tunings, the computer connection matters. Eigenharp’s chairman, John Lambert, sets the record straight for CDM on the software, the way it talks to your computer and other gear, and how open the tools and protocol will be.

I’ll be talking more with John next week, but I want to bring you this news now. Part of blogging means that you don’t hold back – you share that first reaction and then learn more. I’m pleased to say I was dead wrong on the Eigenharp. What looked on the spec sheet like MIDI-only communication and proprietary software turns out to be just the opposite. Sometimes, being wrong is great. Here are all the details:

I don’t know if it’s “the most revolutionary new musical instrument of the last 60 years,” but let’s be clear on one thing: the Eigenharp Alpha is utterly, beautifully insane. It combines breath and finger input in a bassoon form factor, but with quite a lot more physical control, a computer connection, and no internal sound source of its own. The breath input comes from a crooked tube as on a bassoon, with finger input in a touch strip, a fretted, light-up keyboard, and keys that have their own various forms of expression. Launched yesterday in London, the Eingenharp is getting a lot of attention. (And yes, some of you spotted signs of its launch all the way back in June, to which I say – I’m sorry I’m so late to the party.)

From BBC: Do you drum it, strum it or stroke it?

I hope to speak to the creators soon. Already, I see some indications that there are equal parts genius and madness here. The controller itself, even in the bizarre bassoon form factor, has an extraordinary amount of control, with high-resolution keys, percussion keys, elaborate control arrangements that can adjust tone or record samples, and extremely precise breath and touch. At £3,950, many computer musicians accused of “knob twiddling” by the creators probably won’t be able to afford the top-of-the-line model, but I do believe an instrument like this can easily, fairly cost this much, it’s a cost reasonable for musical instruments – and there is a £349 “Pico” edition for mortals.

There’s some madness, too, however. For the “instrument of the future,” the creators appear to have chosen MIDI, via USB, in place of a modern control protocol. Then, they plug the instrument into proprietary Mac software. (A Windows version is expected early next year.) There are software models of a Cello, a Clarinet, and a Synth, but there are also gigs of samples oddly loaded into SoundFont format. Given the futuristic ambitions and the sky-high price, closed software and antiquated I/O seem puzzling to me. I’m also skeptical of the approach here of piling on as many controllers as possible.

CORRECTION – CORRECTION! Yes, indeed – proprietary software and the limitations of MIDI wouldn’t make any sense – and apparently the creators agree. So the software will be open sourced, as will their custom-designed protocol. I’ve got all the details – required reading for anyone working on expressive instruments.

But don’t get me wrong. I think this fascinatingly bizarre instrument is worth exploring. The hardware design looks exceptionally luxurious, and there is some genuine design innovation in the controller the likes of which we’ve never seen in an instrument beyond a prototype or two.

Oh, and yes, I already want the Pico – and I think the Pico’s fewer controls may actually make more sense.

Basic specs:

I got to spend yesterday working with the Launchpad; see the video above which I think should help you get a sense of scale and what it looks like. (Also on YouTube) We have additional videos from other sources below.

It’s only been public for less than 24 hours, but as we did with the APC40, I think it’s time for a superguide answering questions about the Novation Launchpad controller.

The Launchpad and the way it works reveals a lot about how controllers work with Ableton Live. You may be surprised to learn a lot of this doesn’t require a special controller and doesn’t require Max for Live – it’s standard Ableton stuff that works with MIDI. (Remember MIDI?) And I think some of these answers could be worth a read if you have interest in hardware control hacking in general.

There have been a lot of questions from myself and readers, so I’ve done my best to get answers. Realize, a lot of this information is developing and is based on my limited understanding, so it’s all subject to change. I’ll update this guide over the next couple of days if I get any corrections.

Side note: What about interoperability? I intend to talk more about OSC and the Live API (and each separately) in coming weeks. I think it’s impossible to judge the full picture of how Live can interoperate with other tools, though, until there’s some more information, so stay tuned on that.

Basic Questions

Q. What do you get with Live 8 Launchpad Edition, the bundled software?

New to Ableton Live, and wondering if you can get anything done with the “lite” Launchpad Edition bundled with the hardware. The short answer is, yes you can. The included edition has restrictions, but it’s still a reasonably capable version if you’re new to Live and want to experiment.

A monome-like grid controller built for Live, shipping in November for $199 – and I’ve got a first hands-on look with the hardware.

The feature that makes Ableton Live Ableton Live has always been its Session View, an array of Lego-like blocks of music triggering samples and patterns. In the grand tradition of the MPC, mapping hardware controls that make music non-linear has been a major theme of computer music, leading to the monome and the Tenori-On. Usually, consumer gear has only combined these with traditional drum pads, knobs, or faders.

Enter the Novation Launchpad. It’s $199. It’s a grid controller and nothing else, with a set of on/off buttons in an 8×8 array, plus additional shortcut buttons around the sides for switching modes. It’s set up out of the box to integrate with Ableton Live, but it also acts as a generic MIDI controller. It’s bus powered, really lightweight, and compact. Even following Akai’s earlier APC40 this year, there’s something special about the Launchpad: its radical simplicity, and the fact that it is this compact and cheap and plugs in via USB without power, makes this a potential no-brainer for any Live user with a laptop.

I’ve just gotten one of the first Launchpads to arrive (unit “#16″ on the back), so I’ve been playing around with it and can provide some initial impressions and details. I’ve also gotten input from Ableton’s Dave Hill as well as Novation, and I expect to fill in more soon.

monoming the sincerest form of flattery? Of course, one design more than any other championed the radical idea of a minimal grid of buttons — and nothing else. That design statement was the partially open-source, fully-homegrown monome. I’m sure as a result Novation will be accused of ripping off the monome design. I think the opposite: I think the availability of the Launchpad is a huge victory for monome, and an enormous compliment. More than any other design – including the APC40 – the Launchpad really says that an affordable, mass-market device can take on the monome’s radical form. It says grids could become ubiquitous. It’s an enormous validation of what the monome project has done. Furthermore, I think the monome community can continue to reinvent what to do with grids, with software and interaction. There are also many things the monome is – locally produced, sustainably produced, running with open source software, fully community-supported, available in kit form, working with OpenSoundControl, built in a premium form factor – that the Launchpad is not.

[edited for clarification] I think the Launchpad is unlikely to dissuade a person who wants a monome from getting a monome. But what’s significant here is that the design of musical instruments and controllers can adopt new forms. The monome was seen as radical when introduced. It seemed as though the music tech industry wouldn’t produce anything without slapping on some arbitrary knobs somewhere. The Launchpad really does follow the monome’s design cue, and maps control in Live in some new ways. That gives me hope that other designs could likewise tread in new direction, both from independent and larger designers.

Onto the details… The big picture aside, here’s a first look at how the operation of the Launchpad works. I’ll have a short video a little later on today.