The Prevolt has put up some photos of his Ableton Live controller, dubbed Ambassador. I love that it shares a moniker with the AMC Rambler automobile, though I suspect that wasn’t intentional (pictured at right, photo: Ty Sonneil).
Prevolt describes the gear, which features analog-y, arcade-style hardware controls and a custom case:
This is what I’m using to control Ableton now. All arcade hardware, aluminum top panel by FPE, and a nice wood case courtesy of my man Michael Yates. It uses all key commands through a custom driver to handle playback, effects, editing, warping, UI, mouse clicks, scroll messages, and more, with a lot of tweaks (some strobe, some send double messages, etc):
Finished Ambassador Pics (blog for the Aux Armes VJ/DJ collective)
I got to look over Prevolt’s shoulder while he used the Ambassador in an epic music set in Austin at our SxSW party. It’s really remarkable: those controls may look like overkill, but he’s managed to map just about everything th Live software does to hardware control. To anyone who complains Ableton hasn’t yet done their hardware, this illustrates why that might not even be a good idea — Live users seem to come up with endless control schemes, all different.
Not to mention, with this controller you could get a little Street Fighter in between sets on nice, arcade buttons.
And yes, you even get a little trackball.
After the jump, the whole AV collective in action at SxSW’s closing:
Aux Armes at SXSW 2008 from Aux Armes on Vimeo.