MIDI

We've long been admirers of the work of Swedish designer Love Hultén, who has frequently paid tribute to the worlds of retro gaming and classic computing with beautiful hand-crafted creations. Now he's back with the bizarre Voc-25 chatterbox.

The folks behind the impressive Seaboard Grand have launched a new version of the colorful Lumi Keys learning platform that was crowdfunded last year. The Studio Edition injects some of the Grand's spongy expression into a standard solid keyboard.

Brothers Zacharias and Schuyler Ackert have developed a portable MIDI controller called the Noise Machine that has similar functionality to a full-sized MIDI keyboard, but can fit in the palm of a hand.

Dublin-based startup Joyst Instruments is launching a new MIDI controller called the JV-1 next month on Kickstarter that sports a bunch of gamer-style thumb joysticks up top for creating expressive music. Prepare your DAW for battle!

Californian startup Irijule has launched a MIDI controller on Kickstarter that color codes the relationship between chords and notes, to simplify music theory and put almost two billion chord combinations and over 800 scales within easy reach.

It may look like a strange version of Reversi, but the Striso MIDI controller from Piers Titus van der Torren out of the Netherlands is designed to offer players the same kind of musical expression that you might find with acoustic instruments.

Joué Music Instruments has launched the next generation of its modular music-making interface on Kickstarter. Where the original was designed with pro musicians in mind, the Joué Play has been developed so anyone can make music.

Instrument maker Frank Piesik has built a three-string robotic music machine called Greg's Harp where three different actuators excite the strings in different ways to produce sound controlled by a MIDI keyboard.

Created as a visual element for stage performances, the latest project from Love Hultén is an audiovisual sculpture called Slagwerk-101 – a set of percussion instruments driven by MIDI-controlled solenoids.

After a brief online teaser campaign, Poland's Polyend – the same firm responsible for the mesmerizing Perc percussion system from 2016 – has revealed a new music production machine called the Tracker.

There's a new expressive keyboard synth in town, the result of a collaboration between France's Expressive E and Haken Audio out of Illinois. The stylish Osmose offers expression over three dimensions for every note on the raised keyboard.

A collaboration between the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has resulted in a mid-air gestural tone and beat controller called the GripBeats.