April 27, 2010
As a build up to something we are announcing next week, we’re going to be revisiting a bunch of our custom controller work that we’ve done over the years. Since we have close contact with our customers, we very often get into conversations about “what would be cool,” and sometimes we’ll get people asking us to do finishes or layouts that we never would release on our own.
Case in point: the “Poison” controller that we did for Poison’s 08 tour for their lighting and video guy. He wanted to put the poison logo and toxic green color on the Ohm Classic and call it “his.” Since the inspiration for our wood bodies is the electric guitar, it only made sense that a classic metal band would be one of the first customers to jump on making his MIDI controller “more rocking.” We have been working for years trying to forge our own style, and it’s great when we find out that we are as appealing to long-time rockers as we are to the latest DJs!
Travis did a post-op article about the challenges and approach he took to this job, which involved making the logo durable for the road, and getting the shocking color just right.
Jay managed to score an interview with Mark “Fifi” Taylor, who shared his history as a VJ, lighting designer, and career rock and roll touring maniac.
Check out these articles and pictures to get some insight in what it takes to make our controllers!
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uncategorized by Peter
April 1, 2010
This week we announced our limited edition St. Ohm64. Two weeks ago we released the block diablo limited edition, and after a few days of voices from only one shoulder, we decided we needed to counter it with some goodness. This is the first time we have released a limited edition “set” and we are pretty happy with the results.
The St. Ohm64 is made from a very light maple, has a white aluminum faceplate, and white LEDs. The LED’s are pretty bright on this model and it looks great all light up. The maple wood also has really nice grain on it and it has a VOC free clear coat finish. We are only offering these models on a very limited basis, first come first serve. You can purchase them directly from lividshop.com
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news by Jay
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
November 19, 2009
Recently we made a custom ohm64 faceplate for DJ/Producer amplive. As an Ohm64 user he wanted his logo on the controller reversed so the audience could see it when he performed. We upgraded our Metalbot CNC machine and added a spindle that lets us cut faster and make smaller curves.
We cut this new faceplate out of anodized aluminum and are waiting to get Amp’s unit back to fit it with this new one. Here is amplive playing actual keys, maybe we will see button playing in the next video?
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news by Jay
Last week we introduced the Ohm64 customizer. This simple web-based Flash application lets you style and customize your own Ohm64 with over 100 different combinations. Custom finishes have been something we have been doing for a while, and you can see some of our past efforts in our St. Ohm64 and Diablo Block, Halloween Editions, and many of the custom finishes we have created for artists in the past. We’ve always thought of our hardware as “instruments,” and an important difference between instrument and “control surface,” is that an instrument accommodates different styles and use. We obviously back that up with technology, but, since style is something that is of high importance to us (and probably you if you are reading this), we have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make controller customization as part of our assembly line (see the “meet your makers” blog post to see the people making your controllers”).
