NAMM has just ended and the web is stocked with fresh gear-related news. Music manufacturers from around the world have been sharing their latest efforts and helping shape the future of the instruments we play. I’ve dug through much of what’s happening and selected a few gems to share with my fellow gear-loving controllerists.

The Launchpad Pro has a lot of people excited as it seems the hunger for better, cheaper, or simply different grid-controllers remains insatiable. Novation announces the first “pro” model in their well developed launch-series of controllers, primed to compete with the likes of Ableton Push and The Livid Instruments Base II. Sunny’s recent post has more details and the video below gives a quick overview. 

Keith McMillen Instruments announced a new hybrid of controller, audio-interface, and hardware mixer called The K-Mix. For those who know KMI’s popular QuNeo controller, K-Mix might look familiar, but there is a lot more under the hood here.

As usual, Keith has brought together a powerful and innovative set of ideas to create a very unique device. Pressure sensitive touch strips, up to 8-channel surround mixing, and stand-alone functionality, all at an affordable price? Yes please!

It seems to have slipped off the radar of some other blogs, but for serious MIDI geeks, the BomeBox is big news. It can route MIDI between USB, ethernet, wifi, and classic 5-pin DIN. Most interesting is the fact that you can load it up with files from Bome’s famous MIDI Translator software. For someone with a complex MIDI rig, this could be a one-stop solution.

There’s a new host of audio interfaces coming out this year. Several of them are touting Apple’s favored thunderbolt interface, and all of them working to create new features and greater value in the quest to grab a bigger piece of this universally-needed pie. Follow links below to the manufacturer’s announcements, and be sure to scope out Arturia’s carefully thought out first entry into this market, The AudioFuse.

• Arturia AudioFuse
• Roland Super UA
• M-Audio Deltabolt
• Novation Audio Hub
• Focusrite Clarett series
• Behringer U-PHORIA series

A bit outside the controllerism realm, I was fascinated to learn about a new algorithmic mastering service called LANDR. They claim to have taken the basic processes involved in mastering single songs, and completely automated them (with good results). A useful comparison can be made to the Shazam service. Feed Shazam a short snippet of audio, and it uses data pre-gathered through the analysis of millions of songs to quickly identify what artist and song it is hearing. LANDR is similar in that it uses intelligence gathered from a large library of pre-analyzed songs, but in this case the analysis helps it understand the general sonic characteristics of the whole audio recording. Feed it an unmastered song of your own, and LANDR will identify its style, and dial in a processing chain to transform its sonic characteristics to match other well-mastered songs in that style. The company’s goal is to place their technology everywhere, from digital distribution platforms like BandCamp, to creation software like DAWs, and even to the same businesses that painstakingly master tracks using the “old” way (that way being human audio engineers listening to your song and operating machines that make it sound better). You can try it yourself for free and get free low-resolution demo-masters almost instantly.

Also worthy of note are:

• Jambe, a new iOS percussion controller with a musician-friendly interface.
• Teenage Engineering’s “Pocket Operator” synthesizers which are another shining example of TE’s very unconventional approach to instrument design.
• The Korg Kaoss DJ Controller, which seems like a bit of a throwback to the early DJ controllers that began appearing in 2006, but includes some thoughtful and unique features that might appeal to people looking for a simple and fun way to DJ.
• Bitwig 1.2, the next contender for your DAW dollars which is looking better all the time.

What do you think? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!

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