Mine Modular MIDI Controller

[normen]

Hey,

I guess some of you already heard about the "Mine" MIDI controller, its a modular controller where you can clip in knobs, encoders, pads, buttons and faders.

It recently went on Kickstarter and I backed it for a "big" kit but there doesn't seem to be much of a run there, afaics it stagnated at about 20k of 150k.. I wonder why this is? Anyone heard anything negative about this? Or did just nobody notice they went live with it?

Thoughts?

Cheers,
Normen

[electrofux]

Yeah we had a little thread a bit further down. They look great. I am not sure about the pricing and the packages though. I would want lots of encoders and pads and the packages with 16 encoders are pretty expensive. Love the concept though.
I was actually waiting for the kickstarter but was a bit disappointed about the availabe packages.
If there was a package with 16 encoders and 16 double buttons at a reasonable price i would think about it.
I am still thinking of going with the yellow pack and see if i can stock up later.
But what really keeps me is that i dont know how the encoders feel both mechanically and digitally (concerning resolution).

[O1B]

Basically, a

but the F1's $200. Mine MOD seems to be double the Price. I could be wrong.

Bigger seems even more prohibitive in price - compared to other midi options. And, no Touch Strip Option.
The fake wood is even worse than the DrumBrute. and the exposed board is one Beer spill away from Clusterfuxxx - not the Band.


... most would rather use the F1... these look dull and uninspiring... (convo over on Synthopia)

Good luck with 'em!
Palette Gear does it without the circuitboard. much more convenient.. still returned it.... not ready for prime time.


... I'm hoping Livid comes with a new offering along these lines.

[O1B]

No other responses....? I did research this a while back. Here are some speculations i found for you to consider, Normen..

from Synthopia...
- " their future controllers section plans for a touch strip, a motorized fader, so I imagine a spring loaded pitch lever would be doable– but you’d be relying on them to deliver that– and with no guarantee."
- "a joystick module, or a traditional pitch bend wheel"....?

- "if I could build a 64 encoder system"..."it looks like over $1000 by my estimate"

- I think the way the modules clip into the board is a design flaw. Those little plastic clips eventually break. Maybe you need to investigate magnetic pieces instead.

DigitalDJTips
- 'Since this appears to be a surface contact electronic "breadboard", the contacts are subject to wear much more than a ZIF CPU socket (lever type)."

- "Hard to imagine this lasting in a club or even in and out of a gig bags..."

AskAudio
- "needs to be able to save many midi mapping presets, like 50, one for every vst, audio unit,etc., this is what every controller is missing"

[electrofux]

For sure premade controllers are cheaper and probably more sturdy but for many people current controllers are allways lacking something and this is the chance to build the controller you allways wanted. At least featurewise. And it is futureproof unless you dont wreck it (which is a valid point).

As i said and some people also noted especially the encoders seem to be on the expensive side. Hopefully they are high resoltion ones. Never understood why most controllers have these 24-36 ppt encoders and often without led rings.

That other modular controller environment looks cool but is biig and very expensive.

[HepCat]

For hundreds of dollars, you can get a controller which stores and switches between multiple configurations, and you can see the configurations on a nice big LCD screen e.g. the Nektar Panorama, and DAWs like Reason would be natively supported. That's the entire flexibility of the Mine controller outdone, right? Or am l missing something? Give or take a few more physical controls that the Mine can fit in one box, more than e.g. the Nektar Panorama P1.

Also, what happens if the Mine falls on the floor? Hmm, coming to think of it, it would probably fare better than premade controllers, because if the shock of impact forces the controls to fly out of the Mine, then effectively that acts as shock absorbance, channelling impact into kinetic energy of the loose controls which fly apart - maybe the Mine won't therefore irreperably fracture.

Still, come on! We need all this for £100 absolute max., no greater.

Btw l hope that's not some kind of Arduino programmer he was messing about with - that's terrifying to the man on the street. Ordinary folk would just want to tell the controller to behave as a DJ controller or a DAW controller, pitchbender, crossfader, normal control. Maybe also set a controller range in %, but nothing extra, certainly no Arduino stuff, would rather just buy a Nektar Panorama or a secondhand Edirol PCR keyboard (can store multiple control maps, has touch sensitive pads, crossfader, faders, pitchbend) or something

[electrofux]

For hundreds of dollars, you can get a controller which stores and switches between multiple configurations, and you can see the configurations on a nice big LCD screen e.g. the Nektar Panorama, and DAWs like Reason would be natively supported. That's the entire flexibility of the Mine controller outdone, right? Or am l missing something? Give or take a few more physical controls that the Mine can fit in one box, more than e.g. the Nektar Panorama P1.

Also, what happens if the Mine falls on the floor? Hmm, coming to think of it, it would probably fare better than premade controllers, because if the shock of impact forces the controls to fly out of the Mine, then effectively that acts as shock absorbance, channelling impact into kinetic energy of the loose controls which fly apart - maybe the Mine won't therefore irreperably fracture.

Still, come on! We need all this for £100 absolute max., no greater.

Btw l hope that's not some kind of Arduino programmer he was messing about with - that's terrifying to the man on the street. Ordinary folk would just want to tell the controller to behave as a DJ controller or a DAW controller, pitchbender, crossfader, normal control. Maybe also set a controller range in %, but nothing extra, certainly no Arduino stuff, would rather just buy a Nektar Panorama or a secondhand Edirol PCR keyboard (can store multiple control maps, has touch sensitive pads, crossfader, faders, pitchbend) or something

There are a lot of people who have their perfect controller in mind and nektar is by far not what i am personally looking for. Thing is too big, just 8 encoders of which i dont know how good they are, don't like non motorized faders, no rgb lit buttons. Might be a bit nerdy i know but i have tons of controllers and i know pretty much what i want.

But i would appreceate it if someone shows me a controller with 16 high resolution encoders with led rings and 32 rgb lit pads. I am not even sure if the Mine encoders are any good. But that aside good encoders dont come in cheap anyways.

Anyways 7 days to go and alot is missing. Doesnt look that good, does it?

[artotaku]

There are a lot of people who have their perfect controller in mind and nektar is by far not what i am personally looking for. Thing is too big, just 8 encoders of which i dont know how good they are, don't like non motorized faders, no rgb lit buttons. Might be a bit nerdy i know but i have tons of controllers and i know pretty much what i want.

But i would appreceate it if someone shows me a controller with 16 high resolution encoders with led rings and 32 rgb lit pads. I am not even sure if the Mine encoders are any good. But that aside good encoders dont come in cheap anyways.

Anyways 7 days to go and alot is missing. Doesnt look that good, does it?

I also struggle finding the perfect controller. I don´t like paging or banks of controls.
It´s hard to find controllers that have more than 8 channel strips and more than 3 potis/encoders per channel strip.
FaderFox seems to develop a new controller system which will have 12 channel strips (http://faderfox.de/new-module.html) but price will be a bit steep and they are not available too soon I guess.
The best layout so far has VESTAX VCM-600 IMHO. But you need to have two of them for 12 channel strips. They are quite cheap, though.
Another alternative may be multiple chained Allen & Heath Xone K1 or Behringer CMD MM-1.

[TChandler]

I also struggle finding the perfect controller. I don´t like paging or banks of controls.

This is why I came up with 'grab' on Nektar controllers - it is a way to instantly control the parameter you are looking at on the screen without menu-diving. Using Grab you can take control of any parameter on the active device/RE.

Grab works like this:
- Hold SHIFT on a NEKTAR controller then move the parameters you want to control with the mouse (eg: A, D, S then R).
- Release SHIFT and move the controls on the Nektar controller to map them (eg Fader 1, 2, 3 then 4 to map the ADSR env).

This is great for programming and far more useful than the remote override built into Reason as you don't lose the mapped controls from other devices.

For live performance however, I appreciate this is not a suitable solution, so I'm looking at that.

[electrofux]

I also struggle finding the perfect controller. I don´t like paging or banks of controls.

This is why I came up with 'grab' on Nektar controllers - it is a way to instantly control the parameter you are looking at on the screen without menu-diving. Using Grab you can take control of any parameter on the active device/RE.

Grab works like this:
- Hold SHIFT on a NEKTAR controller then move the parameters you want to control with the mouse (eg: A, D, S then R).
- Release SHIFT and move the controls on the Nektar controller to map them (eg Fader 1, 2, 3 then 4 to map the ADSR env).

This is great for programming and far more useful than the remote override built into Reason as you don't lose the mapped controls from other devices.

For live performance however, I appreciate this is not a suitable solution, so I'm looking at that.

It is still a complicated overrride thing. I rather seek a controller where i look at it and after max 3 button presses on the controller i have the right eoncoder in my hand (of which i want 16). I currently have that kindof but with 3 different controllers working together in a rather complicated setup which i dont like for that. So the Mine looks like it could offer the fleixibility to have just one controller which serves the same purpose.

[normen]

Some interesting thoughts here, some of my opinions on them:
- I also played with and own MANY MIDI controllers yet I still find this one interesting because you can change the physical arrangement, so you can basically assign it to some virtual instrument completely, mirroring the design. This is basically how I want to use it in the studio, like having an actual Moog sitting there. Wouldn't even mind having only pots and no encoders for that purpose, its about tweaking one synth, not going back and forth all the time.
- A touch screen is by no means a replacement for a proper controller. Been there, done that, went back to mouse & physical knobs.
- This thing is relatively pricey but oh well, designing my own from parts and an arduino or whatnot is also expensive plus it cost time. Not that I won't build my own anymore but I found this one interesting enough to try it.
- Build quality.. well it'll sit in my studio anyway, not planning on gigging with it.
- Assigning controllers is definitely an "issue" however one that imo should be solved on the software side. Whats the point in having lots of MIDI maps in the device? Reason has a great controller plugin format although they maneuvered themselves a bit into a corner with REs now. Who is writing the plugins now? The hardware manufacturers, supporting all new REs? The RE developers supporting all control surfaces? The Props doing all at once? In the end its up to me for my current MIDI controllers, so it will be up to me for this one as well, editing remote maps.

This is actually a Problem in Logic as well, even though it really has THOROUGH support for the Mackie Control line. I have a MC with two extenders (i.e. 24 faders+pots) and one Mackie C4 (4 rows of 8 pots + displays). You can control basically everything in Logic from the remotes. Plugin parameters can always be shown on the C4 for any plugin but the ordering is hit and miss, for every compressor you try the threshold is in a different position. So even though you have the displays showing the parameters and their values you always have to search first.

There is however a plist file in each plugins settings folder that allows you to change the ordering of the parameters. So I made a little program to switch through the plugins settings files, display the ordering in a drag&drop grid, change the order and add empties if needed and then save the files. This way I made every EQ, compressor, gate, limiter have their knobs in the same position on the C4 in Logic.

As I use Reason instead of Logic for synths and instruments I still feel a generic 8x4 encoder bank doesn't cut it on the instrument side. I do have a Behringer BCR and BCF connected to the Reason PC (apart from keyboards and a PadKontrol) but I still want something more physical for some instruments. So I can really play and tweak as if there was a synth standing next to my mixer (without being tied to that synth and having to service it like when I simply buy a synth )

[electrofux]

i found hat a good level of control allways comes with having to dig into the scripts and on a basic Level remote maps are easy to edit but offer immense expandability featurewise.

What i found after numerous iterations in how i want to control Reason is that i need max 16 banks of 8 encoders to cover any given device (most use 8 banks but Thor etc. use more).
I want to have the flexibility to setup 2 different banks at once so i need 16 encoder and 32 buttons. Therefore i really ike the duo pad units.
They have a build your own site and this setup would come to around 500$.
If the encoders are really good, i would think about it but i just don't know and that is one important thing for me. I need 127 pulses per 360/or better 270 degree. Otherwise you get steppy modulations in alot of situations. Never really understood why 24/36 ppt became the standard. I think thats pretty bad: either you twist the encoder for ages or you get jumpy sounds because it skips values in some wonky acceleration mode.

In the i might fare better with the Midifghter Twister and Launchpad Mini Combo.

Btw during the weekend i set up a Bome Miditranslator script that takes control of the Mouse similar to the touchinnovations Master Kontrol. Such a point and twist control option is actually pretty nice and imho should be build into Reason. It is really nice to have a direct control of anything under your mouse pointer. Especially when you browse through your rack and have a couple of effects added here and there which are not easily reachable for your main controller.

I just cant find a good controller for that like the Monome Arc with just one impressive touch encoder. Probably have to build it myself.

[normen]

Looks like it didn't make its goal.. Oh well :/