Winter NAMM 2016 (the annual gear lust thread)

[64Guitars]

The new Ditto X4 looper pedal from TC Electronic.   $249 at Sweetwater

http://www.tcelectronic.com/ditto-x4-looper/main/





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh6FBgf5Me0

[64Guitars]

Arturia KeyStep keyboard controller and polyphonic step sequencer.   $119 at Sweetwater

http://www.arturia.com/keystep/overview





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l72cHavllw

[64Guitars]

A lot of Bluetooth-enabled products this year. Apparently, they only work with Apple operating systems - iOS and Mac.

Yamaha has announced a pair of Bluetooth Wireless MIDI adapters which allow you to add Bluetooth wireless capabilities to your existing MIDI controllers, keyboards, etc.

http://usa.yamaha.com/news_events/winter_namm_2016/yamaha_ud-bt01_and_md-bt01/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NUTuOi1_Ec

[cuthbert]

Arturia KeyStep keyboard controller and polyphonic step sequencer.   $119 at Sweetwater

http://www.arturia.com/keystep/overview





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l72cHavllw

Now that looks cool. 

And wouldn't you know it, I just picked up an Arturia Beatstep (which does a lot of this sans keyboard) for an Xmas present. At least it was cheap... 

[64Guitars]

And wouldn't you know it, I just picked up an Arturia Beatstep (which does a lot of this sans keyboard) for an Xmas present. At least it was cheap... 

How do you like it? Are the pads as sensitive as they seem to be in the demo videos? The pads on my Akai Pro MPK25 are practically useless because I have to hit them so hard to get them to trigger. I've been very interested in the Beatstep ever since it was first announced. It's got some great features and the pads look very sensitive and playable in the videos. I want to be able to tap out beats with my fingertips, not pound them with my fists.

[Groundy]

Some pretty good equipment...
The Jeff whammy looks quite good.....


Alex

[cuthbert]

How do you like it? Are the pads as sensitive as they seem to be in the demo videos? The pads on my Akai Pro MPK25 are practically useless because I have to hit them so hard to get them to trigger. I've been very interested in the Beatstep ever since it was first announced. It's got some great features and the pads look very sensitive and playable in the videos. I want to be able to tap out beats with my fingertips, not pound them with my fists.

Actually, up until today I had only used it as a sequencer (CV and MIDI). It's pretty cool in this role, as it has 16 steps (you set pitch for each step from the potentiometers, and turn the step on or off from the pads), and you can save 16 different patterns and load them in step, e.g., next selected pattern comes up when the current pattern finishes. You can set the tempo from the big pot on the left, and choose scales, note length, pattern type and direction, etc. I'm looking forward to playing around with this, and I'm sure it can go much deeper than my initial testing so far.

I just tried it out as a MIDI controller this morning, and I'm happy to report that the pads are very responsive, plus you can load different velocity curves (among other things) using their MIDI Control Center application. Again, the feature set looks deep, and I've barely scratched the surface. But I think I'll be using this for drums instead of a keyboard in the near future!

[Blooby]

Again, the feature set looks deep, and I've barely scratched the surface. But I think I'll be using this for drums instead of a keyboard in the near future!

The BeatStep was a device I bought when it first came out, but my frustrations with midi have kept me from exploiting its features (I wanted to throw it across the room). Down the road, I may be picking your brain (or perhaps I'll just throw it across the room).

Blooby

[Blooby]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpSeA14xHE

[Blooby]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqnXGEbenXQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7otjBeR0yh0