The Wonderful World of MIDI Controllers
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A MIDI controller can be an innovative & impressive way to add an entirely new expressive element to your music-making.
There are more MIDI controllers out there than ever before. A whole wide range of price points, features & interfaces to get inspired & make new kinds of music that it can easily get overwhelming to start with.
Here we decipher the what, the why & the when including all things MIDI controllers!
Earlier in the 70s, even if musicians had more than one keyboard to play with they couldn't play them simultaneously as there was no way to electrically interconnect them. Out of necessity, a new format emerged in the 80s which allowed musicians to control their synthesizers externally - by another keyboard potentially made by a rival manufacturer, or even by the computer.
It was called Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) and it soon became the industry standard for connecting not just different makes of synthesizers but drum machines, samplers, controllers and computers as well. The birth of MIDI proved to be a revolution for the music industry & further allowed the first home studios to be born, with computers being fast enough to be able to sequence notes and control the number of keyboards, drum machines & pad controllers.
After 3 decades, MIDI is still going strong - remaining one of the core components of professional recording and music production. The same way the old-school rock stars brandished guitars & synths, today's laptop songsmiths hit the stage with MIDI controllers - boxes that let them physically "play" music software like instruments.
Today, a MIDI controller is not just for tapping out beats or triggering notes, as many are designed to be so integral with today's gear that they are almost an extension of it, instruments in their own right, enabling you to compose and record melodies, chords and basslines, or sequence entire songs together to trigger both the music software and other hardware.
Controllers are available in all sorts of shapes and sizes to suit just about every production and performance task. Some of the controllers may seem a bit gimmicky, some may seem like they are right out of the future & some may be just purpose-built to suit the needs of the producer or control a particular software. Without a doubt, not having one of these can easily result in missed opportunities of capturing a moment of spontaneous creativity.
As they say physical controls - faders, knobs, pads and everything in-between - help bring a certain immediacy to your production, essentially extending your physical self into the music-making process. And MIDI controllers are, in essence, devices coated with things you can touch to affect the sound in your computer.
TRC Recommended MIDI Controllers:
➡ UNDER 12K:
1. AKAI LPD8 V2
2. NOVATION LAUNCHKEY MINI MK3
➡ 12K TO 35k:
1. NATIVE INSTRUMENTS MASCHINE MIKRO MK3
3. NEKTAR AURA
➡ OVER 35k:
2. ABLETON - PUSH 2 + LIVE 11 SUITE
3. NATIVE INSTRUMENTS MASCHINE MK3
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Read more: Shaping How We Listen To Music: The Impact of MIDI Keyboards
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