MidiTable is a huge and heavy project which is designed specifically for only one kind of performance. It is made of a MIDIBOX 64 which only uses digital input -no knobs or whatsoever-. It sends MIDI on-off messages through 54 ‘very’ sensitive buttons and 4 foot switches. The device is divided into six virtual parts; drums, sample 1, sample 2, bass, synth 1 and synth 2. The user can record drums, trigger various samples (even can record the order and the timing of triggering) and record some musical phrases using a MIDI keyboard.
After recording everything, the user can arrange a song out of the recorded loops on the fly. This way of performing assumes that the user is going to record drums, bass lines and various synths for all the songs in the performance -which is kind of challenging because the user has to come up with a ‘nice’ synth phrase with a decent tone for every song-. Since this way of performing also requires a lot of pre-performance preperation, I kind of hated it after few weeks.
The ‘Sensitive’ Buttons
After dissecting various usb devices, I fell in love with the way silicone -and most- usb keyboards operate. They have buttons that consist of three layers; two of which hold metal parts and the middle layer lets them stay away from each other unless a pressure is applied. After some material research, I found out that acetate papers and aluminium foil tape are perfect for mimicking touch sensitive behavior.
The touch button concept is something that I still use in the development of the forthcoming Bumdrum 2.0 instrument.
