Hey all,
I wanted to let folks know about what could potentially be a really interesting way to spend part of this Sunday, especially if you’re curious about electronic music controllers like the Joué.
The Joué team is getting ready to launch a Kickstarter for its new entry-level music composition and performance system, Joué Play. The company has been really successful with its first product, the Joué Pro (formerly just the Joué), and this looks like a really great way to expand their market by offering less complicated interfacing and dedicated software. I got to try the prototypes at NAMM, and they’re a lot of fun.
The event runs from 1030 AM to 530 PM Pacific Time at Drip Studios in LA. They’re going to be filming musicians and producers trying out the Joué Pro and new Joué Play. No obligations other than a video release, they want honest feedback from folks and to introduce the Joué to as many people as possible. Oh, and there’s free pizza and drinks, and a raffle to win a full Joué Pro package that’s worth something like $500.
I can’t be there, but I wish I could; the guys at Joué are a great bunch, and I’d really like to see them succeed in this new project.
Get an Evite for the event and read more about it here
Click here to learn more about Joué
I’d also be glad to talk more here about the new platform as I get more data, if anyone is interested. It’s an interesting take on the Joué approach, with a lot of potential.
Thanks for taking a look, and if anyone from the forum gets to go, can you let me know how it went in this thread?
mike
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All the best for the event!
I love my Joué and have met the team at Superbooth18… let’s say they made it even more special signing it in the back;-)
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That was fun!
(If they don’t get a lot more people in there, I might get a lot of coverage, as the only keyboard focused player so far.)
Thank you so much for popping by, Aaron! I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
It’s a very smart campaign.
The focus was really on making Joué more beginner-friendly, and I think they’ve succeeded wildly at that.
This iteration, the overlays are full-width, with a variety of controls that make sense within a given use case.
So, here are 12 drum pads with a pair of octave buttons to bank sounds, and a few modulation sources. (a bubble/joystick on the left, and a big XY pad on the right). It’s a sensible layout for expressive finger drumming.
Likewise for the guitar interface. You’ve got the fretboard, and some modulation controls. (The XY pad is more rectangular) It’s exactly the configuration you’d want for that purpose.
They’re all like that. Very straightforward.
There’s also a mobile app, currently in beta, which will let users associate different instruments with each overlay, with a multi-track midi looper. That’s using internal sounds, so a user with no technical experience with MIDI can get started right away.
The new overlays do work with our hardware, and there will be pledge levels for us to buy those without a new base.
And the old overlays do work on this base, but are locked by default. (If the user wants to go experimental, the upgrade from “play” to the “pro” version that you and I already own from the first campaign will be a purchasable firmware download)
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I just wish it were at least twice as wide, then it would also become interesting as an instrument, not only as a controller.
I can see that.
I do think the “scalar” overlay in particular can be abused through external scripts to be much more interesting as an instrument.
But to your point, there’s not really a way to make two keyboard overlays sit flush by each other, as one has with the Morph.
(You could potentially rotate one of them 180 degrees, if the firmware adjusts for that, and get closer. But no more than two.)
Thanks for the update, Aaron.
Nothan, I think the given size was chosen to form a good compromise between playability and portability. I know some people would want bigger ones but I’m not sure how many they’d sell…
At least one… 
Yepp, also no clue. But I think there is a reason why they build pianos with 88 keys, not 24 or 12.
I really like 61. Will settle for 48 when I have to.
If I only have 25, there will be a second controller next to it.
And probably a sequencer.
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