Do you ever find yourself bored with your overused menagerie of keyboard licks and phrases? Would you like to take an already-recorded MIDI sequencer track and give it new life and expressiveness?
Alternative controllers are a great way to accomplish this. What do I mean by alternative controllers? For a keyboardist, I mean any type of MIDI or CV (control voltage) controller that’s not a standard keyboard. This includes guitar controllers, wind controllers, audio-to-MIDI controllers, drum pads, sampler pads, ribbon controllers, theremins, smart phone and tablet controller apps, and many more.
Let’s start with MIDI pad controllers: the Novation Launchpad gives you 64 RGB-backlit pads, with each of those pads assignable to a specific MIDI note, or a continuous controller message, or pretty much any MIDI command. You can then open up a whole new world of entirely new riffs and licks by arranging MIDI notes in any way that occurs to you. You can also “play” effect parameters, or any synth parameters, in real time simply by assigning that parameter’s MIDI CC# to a specific pad.
If you have even a little bit of guitar or wind instrument experience, you can create fresh, new phrases by playing into an audio-to-MIDI converter. The Sonuus G2M Universal Guitar-to-MIDI and Sonuus i2M Music Port (5-pin DIN and USB respectively) are two very inexpensive units that will turn a single-line (monophonic) performance into MIDI.
If you’re more than a beginner, consider the Fisherman TriplePlay Wireless MIDI Pickup. It can be safely (and temporarily) mounted to almost any electric guitar to provide surprisingly accurate polyphonic tracking. Its USB MIDI output can be sent (via the included wireless USB receiver stick) to any of your computer music applications or even your iPhone or iPad musical applications. If you add Fishman’s TriplePlay FC-1 Floor Controller, you can even access all of your hardware synthesizers and keyboards via standard 5-pin MIDI jacks.
For those who’ve spent years playing a wind instrument in grade school or high school, consider a Roland Aerophone AE-10 or AKAI Professional EWI controller. There are several versions with some having built-in sounds, and others outputting only USB MIDI or standard 5-pin MIDI. The ability to use your breath for expressiveness will completely invigorate your performances.
ROLI has a line of exciting alternative controllers including the Seaboard controllers that allow you to slide and bend notes, along with many other performance tricks via its squishy control surface. They also make a series of Lightpad and controller blocks that wirelessly turn finger gestures into musical performances.
Two of Moog’s theremins, the Etherwave Plus, and the Theremini can be used to control notes, synth parameters, and effects just by waving your hands in the air (like you just don’t care). The Etherwave Plus has CV Out jacks for Pitch (vertical antenna), Volume (horizontal antenna), and Gate (note start). The Theremini has a USB port that sends an assignable CC# for each antenna as well as a CV Out jack that can be assigned to either antenna. Whenever I do a live show that involves lots of synthesizers and a theremin to control them, the questions people will stand in line to ask after the show almost always involve the theremin.
For more details about any of these rejuvenating controllers, contact your Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700.
