I wondered if anyone else had used calculators as music controllers. The answer? But of course. Here’s a classic Russian calculator model controlling arrangements in Ableton Live. It appears in this example as though this is working as a USB (QWERTY) keyboard substitute, rather than as a MIDI controller, but you get more of the same potential from all those wonderful buttons.
This find comes to us from Toyo Bunko of Noise.io – themselves lovers of mobile technology, having built a sophisticated soft synth for the iPhone. Toyo writes:
The page (in Russian) : http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124.html
And the video (instant download link) is here: http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124-a-dl.html
([Credited as] created by Zinus of "Diver Group").
The calculator model is Elektronika MK-52, it’s quite famous. More info on this calculator can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-52
He managed to connect the calculator via a USB interface which he took out from an old USB keyboard. So it basically acts like a keyboard controller.
If you’re out there, we’d love to hear more (or from anyone who can translate the Russian here). I expect I’m not the first to point to this, but the calculator music – by popular demand – continues!