Curvy experimental keyboard from Israel

Remember the Samchillian Tip Tip Tip Cheeepeee - the crazy looking MIDI keyboard system built from a hacked, painted ergonomic QWERTY keyboard? Eitan Shefer, an industrial designer from Jerusalem, liked the concept so much that he redesigned it as his final year project. He's made a really great video [google video link] which explains the whole thing, including the relative keyboard layout - you don't press a key to get a specific note, but to get one relative to the note playing at the moment. Great for widdly guitar solos, not (I think) so great for chords. Full details of the project are on Eitan's website. Also on the Samchillian tip (ha!), this page has some interesting videos of Leon (the inventor) playing a $$$ Yamaha Disklavier grand piano with the Samchillian.


Comments:
anyone know of a relative keyboard plugin for normal keyboards? as a midi plugin in cubase or something? would be a good semi-random tune-generating interactive toy.
 
Yes actually, I wrote one. You'll want the program called Delta in the free package here. And for what it's worth, while you can't play chords on it, you can play really fast arpeggios.
 
On Peter's note, I'd like to see better aftertouch (like on a per-key basis) and keys which are responsive to pressure on the lateral axes (side-to-side, front-to-back) to add more dimensions of control.
 
damn that's one fancy demo video.

Peter, In the video there is a cool referance to pitch-bend and filter manipulation by tilting the thing, it's pretty cool.

It looks like a cool idea for real time performance, more then anything else.
 
They are also really, really fast arpeggios - it would take a hell of a lot of practice to play like that Disklavier video.
 
It looks like a vagina
 
Right now I would encourage everyone to boycott Israel for their terror against the country they invaded from 1949 till this day. They haven't adjusted to a single FN resolution. It's a pitty, since 1/3 of the Israeli people actually are against the occupation! The controller looks strange, though. Peace
 
I encourage everyone to boycott anonymous political posts that spread hate and have nothing to do with Audio & music.

This controller looks cool and I it would be nice to see it being sold at a reasonable price ;)
But as I understand this is just a prototype and there are no plans to make it commercial...
 
Right now I would encourage everyone to boycott Israel for their terror against the country they invaded from 1949 till this day. They haven't adjusted to a single FN resolution. It's a pitty, since 1/3 of the Israeli people actually are against the occupation! The controller looks strange, though. Peace

This site is about gear not politics, keep your stupid thoughts to yourself. Anyway, looks like it could develop into a very cool product someday.
 
Boycotts do nothing except hurt the people totally uninvolved. No country or people should ever boycott any other country or people, 99% of the time you end up hurting the ones you set out to protect.

Being anti-Israel is just a sophisticated way of hating Jews in a world too politically correct to come right out and say it.
 
OK. STOP RIGHT THERE.
 
A great "no f$%^ up" type of jamming tool for those of us without music theory knowledge.
 
Please please please don't feed the trolls...
 
hmm, hi all.

drben - check out Leon's site: samchillian.com - for a samchillian software implementation. it looks quite complicated, and un-intuitive, but you can get some good results from it (I use it running thru midiyoke to drive reason3.0)

http://samchillian.com/standalonepc.html

deeco - that's a good point, when you have limited key options, and you are always on the right key, musicaly interesting solo leads are relativly easy, even for people with little to no traditional background.

when I was playing arround with the samchillian software at the studio in the academy - it was fun to put a drum loop and a bass loop and just play arround on the right key. it seemed to yield interesting results.

peter - the conventional keyboard is great for a lot of things. however, it's not perticularly good as a live preformance instrument (compared with, a guitar, for example). Also, the learning curve for playing fast solos is pretty steap. the samchillian approach works well for those kind of uses - since it limits you to a key, and the scope of moving your hands is small too - it's very effective for FAST playing. it sucks at playing chords or playing from regular notation, granted, but it opens a potential for interesting musical expressions - that's the really interesting aspect of that approach.

the live preformance aspect dictated a lot of the design decisions, a wearable object on a strap, leaning on the belly (which means the hands dont get tired holding the object, and are reletivly free to play it)

anyways, cool comments (well the relevant ones, anyway) I like the one about the vegina especialy.
(you can't get closer to the definition of a "desirable product" then that..:-)

cheers,
Eitan.
 
One thing's for sure.
It's a lot easier to play this keyboard when you don't have polio.
Of course, the cure for polio was invented by a Jew too. Being thankful is something you sometimes have to spend energy on.
 
"Being anti-Israel is just a sophisticated way of hating Jews in a world too politically correct to come right out and say it."

That remark was as cunning as a dead hamster trying to convince his dog to eat a bucket of wool for breakfast.
 
1. If you do some research you will find this important to non-music related issues... David Sykes (sp?.) Jaques Picqot agreement dating from around 1912. *Please see:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/sykes.htm


2. a bunch of the chips inside yr computer were designed in Israel---Intel etc. A country which reportedly employs one out of three professionals as some form of engineer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#Economy

My point being the issue is not so clear and really dated from post-victorian and Imperialist concerns and D. Sykes' prescient vision of a hydrocarbon fuels based economy. So, There!!!!! Thought I'd muddy the issue for the uninformed. 'sides im a crappy musician ;)
 
it reminds me a lobster. sounds amazing and great! would be fun just to play around...

an idea: your intervals are +-1234 / +-0567. You could make these custumizeable to approach a desired scale (xMaj, xMin, xAny). so not everything would sound just like a jazzy lead guitar. and one could play other styles as well.

another idea: you could enhance it and add chord functionality, buttons operated by the thumbs. sort of accordion mode, giving some preset chords or intervals. holding the key(s) would be holding the chord. on the other hand this could in a way break up the simplicity and beauty of the concept.
 
As far as chords, wouldn't it be fairly easy to set up keys/buttons to play a relative note to the one being played without changing that note? For example, a "power chord" button that just plays the fifth of whatever note is being played.
 
That's a great idea, how do you come up with that stuff? I'm a writer, and just learning the keyboard so I don't know any of the technical stuff about the keyboard. You probably can't play all the tunes right? It's probably just a toy for people to play not actually play real tunes.
 
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