A box covered with buttons and lights can be much more. Such it is with the Monome, the open source controller for music and multimedia. Beloved for its simplicity, the Monome continues to earn fans. The original 40h is gone, but as we’ve seen here, a new line of models is coming to satisfy your unique sizing needs. Today, we learned pricing and availability. Numbered by numbers of buttons/lights:
- two fifty six: $1400
- one twenty eight: $800
- sixty four: $450
… Shipping mid-October, with preorders a couple of weeks before. Volumes will still be low — 100 of each. The keypads have been redesigned, and there’s a new black walnut base. Details on the Monome site.
But, then, you don’t need someone else to design and make a Monome for you, do you? Monome lovers have had their hands on the kits, and the first creations are starting to emerge. Custom light colors, custom cases, new materials, new form factors — anything is possible.
Here’s a home-built Monome 40h triggering a Moog Voyager, with blue lights to match:
Boli and Xie have been documenting the whole process of making their model, with handsome wooden frames. Here they are gluing it; see the whole process on Flickr.
And our friend Jason Kramer has been working on his own custom Monome, doing some pretty heavy fabrication on his own. I hope to catch up with more on his model when he returns from vacation, but you can check out photos and even a SketchUp file (great idea; Google SketchUp is free and accessible to beginners — I was a fan before it got Googled). I’m working on a custom Monome kit design myself with a terrific designer named Joey Roth; more on that soon, as we progress.
More DIY Monome action, complete with videos, on the Monome forums.
If you want to meet the Monome creators, peoples of the greater Brooklyn Area, be sure to come to Etsy Labs tomorrow night. Brian even promises he’ll play.