Planet Z

New Keyboard manufactured with polyphonic aftertouch

VAX 77

http://www.infiniteresponse.com/complete%20specs.html

it folds in half....

I must get this!

the design might be by J9K ...
the name brings back sentimental memories from computer stoneage
here's a real VAX

cheers, Tom

J9K, might be true.

What is the pricing ?

That's the best link I have recieved in a long time.

I am buying one, don't care if it has bugs. I will work w/ this as it just extended the life of Scope even further.

Imagine what COS could do with this, or better yet, Solaris, QWave. and ProWave !!

This is only 77 notes, but I can deal with that through the fast GUI this thing has. You can actually have a transposition in stanby mode of the same preset, or performance. No problemos.

Thanks Slammah.

I guess it will be very expensive. they talk about cannot be impossible to afford......

I'm guessing they will charge $2,000 and it will fail in the marketplace even though it is very cool.

In 490 B.C. Xerces sent his commander Maradonis to deliver a message to the 300 Spartans which went like this...........................................................................

" You must leave this pass ( Thernopylae ) by nightfall, or be slaughtered where you stand. " King Leonidas replied " But we like it here. " Maradonis then replied, " Tomorrow, our arrows will block out the sun ! " Leonidas replied..." Then we will fight in the shade."


Where there is a will, there is a way.

I plan on paying off my hardware Solaris account by November, I guess this controller will be my quest for Christmas. I will steal soda bottles and cash them in if I must.

I guess the truck to take me to battle in will have to wait till 2008 !!

3000 for solaris and 2000 for this gadget.

My choice is clear.

2000 USD ???

I will definately need a hands on demo for that. But if it is upgradable and customisable they way they advertise, it could be worth the asking price.

I have called them in Texas, and will be arranging a demo. I haven't been to Texas in a long time. The women are plentiful and the live music scene pays very little, but the clubs have built in crowds where people dance and carry on all night.

It is on my agenda now.

so let the Texas guys confirm a price on that demo Jimmy.

I am going the 3rd week of December.

My old college roomate has a music store in Austin.

We haven't seen each other for 8 years.

He claims he can still outdrink me with Jager.

Texans...............................they are always trying to out do you.


BTW, the design also has an option for an iPhone touch screen interface like the Neko, but smaller. Like a 6 x 9 inch touchscreen which will have drawbars and shit like that.

I cannot avoid buying it now. My iPhone's batteries need charging everynight from having that touch screen on it. It's hard to leave it alone, and I like the wireless USB mic and monitor attachment. People look at you like your nuts for talking outloud, but if you are holding your iPhone in view, it suddenly becomes a great topic. The ho's in 'da clubs really like high tech predators.

But a touchscreen drawbar approach is so cool. I only really need the CC's on 1 x 88'r anyway.


I will post other developements as I hear them.

I hope there will be more synthesizers with polyphonic aftertouch implemented.

awesome jimmy. I'll be looking forward to an in depth review. If it rocks, I don't think 2000 is a bad price. The folding's nice, but I wonder if it just makes the thing more breakable. Aftertouch doesn't do anything for me.

I was just guessing the price. I have no idea what it would be.

Have you ever used polyphonic aftertouch? Aftertouch doesn't do a lot for me because it filters all the notes. I can get the same effect with a knob but polyphonic aftertouch is totally different. Think of how how much more interesting pad sounds with long notes would be if you could vary the filtering on each individual note in real time. It is amazing to me. You would have to be criminally insane to not want this feature.

The only current keyboard I could find with polyphonic aftertouch was the Roland A-80 and it is a piece of shit.

well the magic comes from the fingers, when you are able to control each of it.
Maybe there are keyboard players on this world that take musical expression from polyphonic aftertouch.
We will see.

ya, it's tough to even gauge what polyphonic aftertouch will do since the aftertouch we've had 'till now just completely sucked.

The problem is that most synthesizers don't support it. Why should they when almost nobody has it?

I agree w/ Brotha' Man Braincell on this matter 4 sure.

But things will surely look good w/ Gigastudio 4 this Christmas. And also John Bowens synths might, though I am not sure, I will get back to you on that one.

But at the AES a forum member from here demo'd the new Pedal Steel Library and I believe that PAT is still a feature. If that's the case this will be a killer library to use w/ that controller. Imagine bending certain notes only while sustaining the ones still held !! I kinda had this happening years ago on an Ensoniq but the sound was quite lame.

These are the big sellers for the future IMO. Guys like me will never stop playing gigs. So I got all kinds of time to perfect some great performance features in PAT with these kind os applications.

I will see about which synths this could be used with that are currently available.

My 2 cents - when we developed the T-8 at Sequential, I had my first experience with really learning how to play poly aftertouch (sure, I had tried it when the CS-80 came out, and loved it on that, but that was only for a few minutes at the tradeshow). To me, it was such a great feature to have - so very expressive and so on, to be able to individually add nuance to each note....just wonderful!
As I traveled around, doing demos of the T-8 and talking to many musicians, I started to get another kind of feedback, however. I heard that it was too hard for some keyboardists to adjust or learn the technique, especially since most were coming from a piano or organ background, where they didn't have any other control over expression other than velocity (and if they had aftertouch, it was a new technique they had learned, as 'mono aftertouch'). This was hard to believe for me, because I found the Poly AT so great, but I guess it was true, because I heard it often. The other thing was that it was very expensive to produce the T-8 because of the Poly AT keyboard. At that time, we had to adjust each of the 76 key's aftertouch response individually, using a special gauge to measure it (and also checking the velocity sensors, which was something else again), so the labor costs for the T-8 made it high. (As well, the long-throw, fully wooden key assembly wasn't cheap!). Great keyboard to play, though.

And now, 20+ years has past, and how many Poly AT boards are out there? Every once in a while we see one surface, but they are few and far between. The reality is that the expense in producing one (especially a really good feeling, responsive one) must be not worth it for most companies, and this has been true now for over 20 years....and I don't see it changing, as much as I would love to see it happen.

By the way - many synthesizers do support poly aftertouch, as far as I know. You can check in the MIDI implementation and find that the receiving of Poly AT is handled...it's just what you can do with it in the synth, etc. that may not be fully defined.

As for Solaris - I would truly love to have a Poly AT keybed to put in there. It would make it just that much better, but...and I've already said this elsewhere...I do not have an affordable source of such a keyboard. The Solaris will already be expensive enough (especially with the cost revisions I'm going over this week!), and adding much more won't be possible. If you want to buy a VAX 77 and use it as a controller for Solaris, I would love to support Poly AT, but it's also true I won't have any way to really test it. At least, let me ask the engineers if there's any problem with supporting it, and I will make a definitive statement when I find out. I would guess all we'd need to do is add Poly AT to the standard Mod Source list, and you'd have both types of AT in there.

cheers,
John B.