Kids today. They just love their Ableton Live and their Rock Band and their alternative tunings and their Live triggers and touch controllers stuck to their far-out new boutique controllers and high-end MIDI guitars.
Starr Labs has a line of MIDI controllers for Rock Band gamers and musicians on a budget, real guitarists (that’ll be the pro MIDI guitarists, not the gaming ones), and a novel new controller designed especially for Ableton Live. We saw their wireless line earlier today, which interoperates with these; here’s them exploring control.
Gaming and serious musicianship have some surprising overlaps here. Look at the new Ztar, the ZS-XPApros, which is a MIDI guitar – complete with advanced features for hammer-ons, sensitivity, and programmable zones – that also can manipulate Ableton Live right out of the box. Triggers are pre-mapped to Live control layouts. Like the game Rock Band, there’s cheery color coding to match what’s on the screen to what’s on the instrument. Unlike the game Rock Band, you’re playing an actual guitar and controlling advanced music software at the same time. (Show that to the next Xbox gamer who thinks they know it all.)
If you don’t play the guitar, there’s also the airPad, a wireless controller for Ableton with pots, X/Y pad, nav control, and 4×4 light-up pads.
Ztar
The Ztar Z6S-XPA and Z7S-XPA are advanced MIDI guitar controllers with “the industry’s only zero-latency, 6-string x 24-fret touch-sensitive keyed-fingerboard.” (I actually think that’s not hyperbolic; this is the only one I know of.)
Each string trigger has its own tuning, so you get what amounts to a combination between a sophisticated MIDI guitar and an alternative key layout. It’s a controller singularity, as if an alternate-tuning keyboard and a MIDI guitar had a love child.
Specs:
6 Velocity sensitive, Zero latency String Triggers
4-Way programmable Joystick and programmable Mod Wheel
24 fret touch sensitive Ableton Live color-coded fingerboard
Ableton Live control layouts and set-up templates
Ribbon Controller with 2 touch pads (Z7S) / six touch pads (Z6S)
Unlimited String and Fingerboard Tunings
32 Mappable Zones
Programmable Chording System
Arpeggiator & Sequencer
Volume Pedal Port & Sustain Pedal Port
MIDI and USB i/o
The Z6S-XPApro adds six pots.
Scott Caligure has more on the updates to the Ztar.
“The Z6S-XPApro and Z7S-XPApro are newer/updated versions, with improved sensing, latest drivers, multiple sysex ‘layouts’ for various software not only Ableton Live, color coded fingerboard soon to be led-illuminated. We are currently working on the instrument to be a class-compliant device.”
I would call this more like an keyboardaraaytrixocontrollatar. I’m not sure the music this instrument plays has been invented yet. (Microtonal breakcore psychedelia?)
Ztar Rock Controller
The “Rock Controller” is marketed partly for use with the Rock Band 3 Pro Mode, but it looks to me to be just as practical as a MIDI instrument – maybe even a little more so for some users, as it’s a bit simplified in contrast to the Ztar. With USB and MIDI connections, it’s just as happy to be plugged into your computer as an Xbox or PS3, and Starr are quick to say it’s not a toy. With zero-latency string triggers, a four-way joystick, five-way knife switch, muting, and two pedal ports, it’s still out there controller-wise.
And like the others, it has actual strings (to make absolutely certain this isn’t just a toy). But it might be a more down-to-earth alternative if the Ztar is a little too alien or pricey for you. It’s also a huge leap up in quality and versatility from the (also useful) MIDI guitar controllers designed for the game.
airPad for Ableton Live
It might seem a bit out of place here, but the airPad is a more traditional Ableton Live controller. It does boast a novel control layout, and it’s wireless, working in the 2.4G ISM band.
It’s well worth a visit to the Starr Labs site; they make an array of controllers and guitar electronics, including some fascinating alternate keyboard arrays. Makers like this make me wish I’d cashed in on some Web startup boom with an inexplicably-successful idea so I could squander part of my fortune collecting these designs. And for someone, I’m sure, they’ll find a real musical place in performance.