I got one of these recently and am very pleasantly surprised, less with the inbuilt sounds than the capacity as a midi MPE controller, it is very expressive and a lot of fun. You can go up and down an octave or so to make the most of the 8 keys but it is a bit fiddly, but the way it responds to tilting and shaking is very cool, as well as pressure and sliding and gliding and velocity. It is cheap and cheerful but well made and responsive, which is a good combination.
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Interesting to hear what you think of it. It is something I’ve looked at, as an incorrigible collector of gadgets, but ideally I prefer things you can perform with musically in a meaningful way and this looked a bit too limited. Sounds like fun though, and an electronic shaker par excellence. I’ll probably carry on looking out for a cheap one!
I have to admit I was sceptical when I first saw this…
not sure why but its look, form factor, and I guess pricing (?) just meant i thought it’d be some gadget that after first play would be destined for the top drawer never to be used again.
But have to say, after watching Nick (from SonicState) review it, it actually looked like a bit of fun, thats been pretty well executed.
hows the latency on it? that would seem pretty critical for use as a percussive shaker…
for some reason, reminded me of the electronic handpan that was released a few years back
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2101519704/oval-the-first-digital-handpan
hmm, seems their website , ovalsound.com, is not working anymore which is a bit of a concern.
pity, as I quite looked like the of the handpan.
…yes, discontinued long ago…it’s on the watch list…
There’s another on the way. (Long time coming, doesn’t look quite as cool visually IMHO, can’t comment on the functionality.)
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I play nearly all the time using USB rather than Bluetooth, mainly because I can’t get MPE to work over Bluetooth and the help desk people seem a bit flummoxed by this and just tell me to wait for an update. But in truth, I’m pretty happy with a cable, and either way I haven’t noticed any latency issues. The main limitation is the number of keys I suppose but you can change the octave on the device if you want to.
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I honestly prefer it.
Gives me an unmistakable cue as to which direction Pad 1 is on, in any lighting condition.
The hardware is great.
The software leaves much to be desired. Like a dedicated “programmer mode”, for example. I desire that, a lot.
What we have, instead, is assurance from Artiphon that they won’t be making any changes to the signals they currently output. So, we can just intercept and interpret that. It’s not perfect, but it is a foundation to build on.
I picked one up a few days ago after seeing a cheap one on eBay. It’s fun but kneecapped by the software. thetechnobear could write something better over breakfast. I’ve been spending some time over the past couple of days trying to dissect the XML presets to try and get something interesting out of it but it’s hard work. At least the hackers on the forum have figured out how to access alternative scale patterns. (It doesn’t matter so much if you’re using it with other software, but for me the raison d’être is a small accessible gadget I can stick in a bag.)
I like it, and I’m enjoying the work the community is doing with it, just wish Artiphon would help. Here’s an example; there’s only a handful of presets with different sounds for the built-in synthesiser, there’s no official way to edit them, and the parameters in the XML are undocumented. It took a joint effort among users to figure out what they did and develop a patch editor.
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