NO MORE fucking blank grid controllers, please.

God, I am so sick of them. Grid controllers with blank, featureless, non velocity- or pressure-sensitive buttons everywhere. THESE ARE UNIFORMLY TERRIBLE. People who produce these miss the basic tenets of good instrument interface design, the first of which is NEVER DON'T BE SENSITIVE! If you were curious about the second one, it's NEVER DON'T BE INFORMATIVE! Give musicians EXPRESSIVITY and PLENTY OF INFORMATION so they can play, well, expressively and don't have to expend cognitive effort remembering what any particular blank control does at a given moment (and yes, of course I know about Push, but it only works properly with Live and has no polyphonic aftertouch, as well as the same blank buttons I'm complaining about here.)

In the case of devices with lots of buttons on them which are intended as musical controllers, making them incapable of any kind of touch sensitivity and not giving them any display capability IS STUPID and renders them largely useless for anything other than the dumbest on/off capabilities.

To recap:

THIS is stupid:

..and THIS is REALLY stupid:

However, THIS is definitely the right idea. Too bad it's fake and seemingly can't exist yet, given the current state of the art in materials (I would love to be proven wrong about that, btw.) Just for the record. I would happily help fund a kickstarter campaign for this product, if anyone out there figured out a way to do it - click the image:

It's an actual update!

Welp, seems like it's about time for an update, since some visually-interesting stuff happened. There are a lot of photos which will take time to post, so keep checking back. NOTE: I have noticed that the videos I post here don't show up when opening this blog on iOS devices, so for now, use a computer for lucky best viewing!

Above: Ostrava "Colours Of Ostrava" festival, Czech Republic.

 

Above: This was the Junas festival, held on the site of a quarry in France from hundreds of years ago, apparently. Translation: White dust getting on everything (and I wear a lot of black, not so great in this case) and EXTREMELY FUCKING HOT during the day (ditto.) 

This turned out to be the only gig on the tour in which I had all my gear, as Air France lost most of it shortly thereafter. 

This is the street where the studio in which we rehearsed was located. Lovely light there.

 

I had to do this a few times, due mainly to airline baggage handlers' brutality.

This is Kheireddine M'Kachiche, AKA "Kem", a wonderful violinist and all-around lovely guy.

 

Rick Cox, my dear friend/collaborator and one of the most innovative and fascinating musicians I know.

The rehearsal space in Junas, exterior.

Above: Würzburg.

 

 

Above: Berlin Atonal. It took place at an amazing, gigantic disused power station from the 60s that used to supply electricity to all of the former East Berlin. The bottom photo was taken by a pro photographer during our concert. The terrible, shaky video is me walking around during the Borderland (Juan Atkins/Moritz Von Oswald) soundcheck, as we'd just arrived and were a bit dazed at the sheer size of the place.

Above: Isola Maggiore, Perugia, Italy. Again, EXTREMELY FUCKING HOT. At soundcheck, my H8000 was too hot to touch, and we had iPads shutting down with temperature warnings. Back in Perugia itself, note the underground city - it dates back to the middle ages. Also note the Ravioli Tartufo Nero - I ate as many black truffle dishes as I could get my hands on while in Italy. Last shot: Me outside the hotel in Perugia, exhausted and not looking forward to what proved to be a nightmarish trip home. Oh, and here's today's Final Thought: FUCK AIRLINES. The commercial air travel world is just absolute shit these days. Air France ultimately found my gear and cheerfully shipped it to me at home THE DAY I GOT BACK. This means I did 1 out of 5 gigs without most of my stuff. How, you ask? It's MAGIC! Anyway, the airline industry desperately needs some Steve Jobsian character to come in and disrupt things utterly. Having said that, it's particularly the worst here in America. United fucked up so badly on my trip home, via a toxic cocktail of technical failures and incompetence, that what should have been a horrible one day trip turned into an unbearable two day trip. Something must be done.