Total control: how the latest MPE, touch and gesture controllers could revolutionize your music production

A self-contained musical powerhouse in the palm of your hand, Artiphon’s Orba 2 can also be a superb way of controlling MIDI over Bluetooth. 

As a hand-held music-creation hub, Orba 2 allows you to load in a variety of samples, and easily play and perform them using the integrated buttons.

Integrating Orba 2’s unique velocity-sensitive pads and gestural control with your DAW and soft synths is the order of the day here, so download and open the Orba 2 app and connect.

To avoid audible clashes, turn down the volume of the physical Orba, then open your DAW. Load up your soft synth of choice (we’ve opted for Equator 2).

Orba 2 has four modes – Drum, Bass, Chords and Lead – which also have a bearing on MIDI control, too. By default, Orba 2’s gestures auto-map CC controls, but we can edit these in our synth as with any MIDI continuous controllers.

Tapping Orba 2’s pads, we can quickly plot out a melody. Haptic feedback gives us instant acknowledgement. Sliding up and down the pads can modulate elements like filters, LFOs and effect parameters.

Tilting the Orba 2 can also bring out new forms of expression, we found it as an excellent way of coating reverb and delay, almost akin to dipping the Orba into a chasm.

Bluetooth MIDI control makes Orba 2 something that can get you away from standard desk-based creation. In Drum mode, moving, bumping and shaking Orba 2 in space opens a new means of creating rhythms.

Orba 2 is so small and mobile that it can be taken out of the studio and used as a standalone, sample-loaded, recording hub. The more you play with it, the more useful it becomes.