January 31, 2011
Our distributor in Belgium Turnlab just churned out this awesome video with Belgian Techo / Minimalist DJ Aurex. Aurex shows his skills on all three of our controllers as an artist and as a programmer. His sequencers are awesome, I am especially looking forward to the Code sequencer and he has made them available for anyone to use for free. You can download the sequencers from his site, and even though they are free he does take donations. Check out the video below, it does a great job of illustrating what his sequencers are capable of.
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news by Jay
July 2, 2010
Just as I was going to make a video showing off the block and the Livid Step Max for Live device, Christopher Willits made one that would have blown mine out of the water. In his “What You Talkin’ Bout Willits Episode 15 – The Block and Max for Live” he shows off the awesomeness of the block using Livid Step. Christopher started this series with XLR8R Magazine, and he cover all sorts of interesting topics centered around music making. If you haven’t seen them before there are a bunch of great topics and techniques covered. Check them out on his youtube channel.
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news by Jay
June 28, 2010
Native Kontrol has just released a preset for the block called Block Live. This is a really powerful preset for Ableton Live, and it opens up tons of creative possibilities for controlling Live. The Block Live script give you the “Red Box” feature of Live like our remote script does, but it goes WAY beyond that. This video created by Stray from Native Kontrol shows off pretty much everything you can do with it.
The video also shows the Block NE edition with a black body and green LEDs, only available at Novamusik.com
FEATURES
- Launch Mode provides an 8 Track x 7 Scene Clip matrix. Button LEDs indicate Clip status.
- Track Mode includes additional Track controls such as Mute, Solo, Arm, Select and Launch.
- Clip Mode allows you to chop up/rearrange Clips on-the-fly and/or play them Chromatically.
- Drum Mode provides a 4 x 4 grid of bankable drum pads along with Last Pads and 16 Levels features.
- Chromatic Mode provides a 4 x 4 grid of bankable chromatic pads along with Add Note, Pitch Bend and Sustain functions.
- Learn Mode allows you to learn Chords and their associated notes to the Block’s buttons.
- User Modes 1 and 2 each provides 5 Button Faders and 6 Buttons that are assignable via MIDI mapping mode in Live.
- Global Controls provide control over global parameters such as Tempo, Global/Record Quantization and Metronome.
- Knob Modes provide control over Track Volume, Pan, Send A-H and Devices via 11 Knob Modes.
- Fader Modes provide control over master parameters such as Master Volume and Cue Level via 3 Fader Modes.
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news by Jay
March 16, 2010
Improving on a design and sharing the results with our users is always at the top of our list at Livid. The Block controller has been a great success and we have just made some minor design changes to make it even better. Originally milled from a solid block of wood, the square body with thin bottom has had its challenges, mostly warping and cupping. We have experienced a bit higher reject rate for bodies at the shop before they were built then we would like. Thus, the up and coming stash of rejected bodies in the Livid Graveyard that were never meant to be!
The other issue is that we have always wanted to eliminate most if not all of the screw heads showing from the top. The all milled body just is not stable and consistent enough to do that. We are very excited to show off our new body construction that addresses both issues and more. We now use a 4 piece side wall design with separate faceplate and bottom plate. The body side walls feature an interlocking joint for both strength and squareness. The beauty in the 4 piece framed construction is that there is almost no end grain showing, so the finish and grain are more consistent. Having 4 independent pieces interlocked makes for a great deal more stability against warping and cracking an us having to scrap bodies coming off the assembly line.
We are now also using a translucent frosted acrylic bottom plate. The acrylic also makes for a much more rigid platform to build off of and really helps to keep the Block square and flat even in adverse humidity. It also gives you a look into the insides of the controller.
Lastly, we have not inset the faceplate and it only uses 4 countersunk screws making for a much cleaner look. These changes not only make for a better built controller but make it more compact then ever.
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news by Travis
March 8, 2010
The great thing about making our own products in house is that we get to do whatever we want, and sometimes that means making design decisions because we think it looks cool. We recently purchased a few reels of bright red LEDs and decided they needed to be put on a controller. My dog Poquita (pictured below) spends most of her days sitting on my office chair and inspired the Diablo. She is a sweet dog who provides me with a steady supply of ripe red apples. This is a special edition block that we are only making a small run of.
The body is a new construction for the block, it is constructed from red dyed Mahogany and has a glossy VOC free clear coat. The faceplate is cut from black anodized aluminum and only has 4 countersunk screws in the corner of the faceplate. You will notice that this is a new “frame” design so it allows us to shave a half inch of the total width and height, and the bottom of the Diablo is made of semi-transparent acrylic. Diablo is available now at lividshop.com while supplies last.
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news by Jay
