There have been a few attempts over the years to blur the line between the flexibility that touch control provides and the tactile feedback and velocity sensitivity that musicians need. But many designs never made it off the drawing board, or were halted by major manufacturers before they got the chance to get going.
Now Keith McMillen, who brought us the SoftStep foot controller is back with another take on hybrid touch and tactile control with the QuNeo. Based around a colourful slab of sliders, pads and switches, the video above shows off its capabilities - especially for drums and percussion, where each pad offers enormous amounts of creative control and triggering options.
Check out the official specs below. The QuNeo is a Kickstarter project: Keith is currently seeking a total of $15,000 to get it off the ground.
(Via Create Digital Music)
Keith McMillen QuNeo specs
Tactile Pads, Sliders, Rotary Sensors and Switches
Each of the 27 pads, sliders and rotary sensors are pressure, velocity, and location sensitive. Even the 17 switches respond to how hard you press.
LED Light Feedback
A remarkable lumination scheme combines variably diffusive elastomers with 251 multi-color LEDs providing visual feedback that is immediately responsive and delightfully informative. Man and machine are coupled through light, feel and sound.
Trigger Pads
16 square pads provide 127 levels of Velocity response. And X-Y location. And continuous pressure. For each pad. Times sixteen.
Rotary Surfaces
2 rotary surfaces allow you to scrub, trigger, stretch, pinch and play phrases and sound files, manipulate continuous controllers and more . Each rotary sensor measures angle, pressure and distance from the center.
Multi-touch Sliders
9 touch sensitive sliders can be mapped to fader and effects controls. LEDs within each slider act as VU meters or remind you where you were. Multi-touch lets you select a length between two fingers to set stereo locations or filter resonances. Tapping a slider can mute or toggle any track or function.
Switches
The switches are located in smart groupings to select samples, fader banks, and transport controls. Each of the switches can scan up and down through files at speeds variable with your touch. Great for quickly locating that perfect fill or telling your looper you really meant it.
The Size of an iPad.
QuNeo is the size of an iPad and can fit in iPad accessories such as mic clips, stands and more.
Class Compliant and Open Source Development Kit
QuNeo works with USB, MIDI or OSC and will communicate with your favorite music software environments right out of the box. More advanced users and programmers can use thedevelopment kit and API to create their own code to respond to QuNeo's sensor data. Hack away to control your world in ways never before possible!
To get this project off the ground, Keith McMillen Instruments really needs your support, so head over to kickstarter to find out about how you can help raise funds for tooling and production to make QuNeo available ASAP
