Being the unfeasibly busy guy that I am, keeping with all this new fangled technology is like living on a hamster wheel. You think you're making progress in one direction, and then some smartarse thought it would be a really great idea to start using bloody Ableton. Thus the market is becoming flooded with square boxes bursting with shedloads of buttons and a smattering of knobs and faders. Last week saw the Novation Launchpad hit the internetwaves. And this week it's the turn of Livid, with their much more minimalist styled Block. Looks like I have little choice but to dive into Ableton now.
Livid aren't new to me. In fact, they very kindly sent me an Ohm64 to review (I'm getting round to it unless some UK based Ableton bod on the UK reviews team wishes to bend it out of shape for me). So I can tell you now that Livid simply don't do plastic boxes. Instead, they choose to craft to the beat of their own drum - making unique instruments from solid lumps of wood and metal, loving finished and hand assembled in the US to individual orders. They feel incredibly nice - well bar the wooden crossfader knob that is just too odd for words. But seeing as Block has no crossfader, you'll be in button bashing clip launching heaven instead.
Livid are taking pre-orders right away with a project launch date of 1st November. Yours for the not inconsiderable sum of 399 handmade US dollars.
So… Ableton wet dream?
8 comments to this story
On October 12, 2009, Abe commented...
Wonder how heavy it is... Custom metal and wood sounds really cool but also seems like a studio fixture vs a portable throw in your bag piece of kit. I'll take a Novation Launchpad for 1/2 the price, double the function, and probably 1/2 the weight.
On October 12, 2009, Mudo commented...
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Great Demo and beatyful music!
I love MonOhmes!
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On October 12, 2009, janestreet commented...
this would be so cool if they had three colors like launchpad and apc40 have gonna get launchpad for sure so small and cool
On October 13, 2009, speekez commented...
yeah, i agree, more colors would be sweet, even cooler would be if you could assign colors.
On October 13, 2009, Mudo commented...
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Check octint project and TheRainbow, then:
First a pic
Monome forum topic: http://post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=5479
Devon Jones RGB Api: http://www.julienbayle.net/diy/LiveInterface/
Another maxmsp patch for RGB arduinomes: http://melka.one.free.fr/blog/?p=17
It interests me that the block is not being met with the same cries of "monome rip off!" that the launch pad was. To me if you look past the analog controls this is a far more blatant rip off of the monome and to some extent their business/marketing model if you read the promo material on their website.
Still good to see smaller companies trying to do things differently!
On October 19, 2009, jon@numark commented...
Hi,
I have a question on behalf of Akai (Numark is the parent company) - how important is it to people to have a cross fader like on the APC40 ?
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On October 12, 2009, Abe commented...
8 comments to this story