After a year in development with secret testing at gigs by Minus artists’ Gaiser and Marc Houle, we are proud to present CNTRL:R. In December 2009 we hooked up with electronic music pioneer Richie Hawtin and started talking about designing a new controller together. The next year was spent discussing designs, uses, and prototyping a few units to actually road test in a live performance setting. After a few redesigns and a lot of hard work, CNTRL:R was born. This is one of the most exciting and longest lasting project we’ve work on and it’s only just the beginning.
CNTRL:R features twenty four rotary knobs, twelve push button rotary encoders, eight faders, a 4×4 grid of RGB keypads, and two rows of 16 RGB light buttons. The CNTRL:R also contains our expansion jacks for connecting Roland-style foot pedals and other expressive analog devices such as faders, accelerometers, sensors, rotary knobs, and our XPC expansion controllers. The CNTRL:R is fully programmable with scripts and templates available for softwares such as Ableton Live and Native Instruments Traktor.
In addition to the hardware, we worked closely with Richie Hawtin to create a brilliant Max For Live step-sequencer that integrates seamlessly into Ableton Live. The unique layout of CNTRL:R is ideal for a step sequencer, and this plug-in makes it easy to quickly generate grooves for sounds in a Live Drum Rack. Each pad in the 4×4 matches to a sound loaded in a drum rack, and a sequence is easily entered in the bottom row of buttons. The encoders automatically map to important parameters for the sound, such as volume, pan, filter, pitch, and other controls. Depending on the type of instrument (Simpler, Sampler, Operator, Tension, etc), the encoders will latch onto appropriate parameters allowing interactive, immediate sound-shaping and control. The bottom four encoders map to functions in the sequence itself, allowing for random variation, sequence rotation, and rhythm manipulations. With all these controls at your fingertips, you will quickly find your groove. Beyond all this instant control, a bit of mousing will let you alter the velocity, duration, and chance for each step, as well as offer some different modes of step editing. If one sequencer isn’t enough, the CNTRL:R Remote Script for Live gives you access of up to four sequencers on four different tracks, at the push of one of the top encoder buttons. Of course, because its Max For Live, the source is available for your edit and alter to your own liking. We also have plans for releases of new devices for sequencing melodies, bass lines, improvising with your controller, and more. You’ll soon realize there’s more to Live than mixing clips – you’ll have full interactive control over your entire set.
CNTRL:R is available directly from our online shop and through our worldwide dealer network.
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news by Jay
NAMM was a whirlwind for us this year. In addition to listening to ear wrenching guitar solos all day long, we got to meet a lot of good people and demo our new products. Our resident product specialist Gabe spent most of his time demoing and showing people how our stuff works. We also had a good amount of coverage from some awesome media outlets, so I thought it would make sense to just go ahead and put them all in one blog post. So here it is!
