I was chatting with Andreas Apelqvist from Starstladd who just came back from the Mapping Festival in Geneva. We had heard rumors previous to the festival about a new VJ geared Midi controller from Codanova that was supposed to have controls similar to the first iPod. This funny teaser movie premiered during the Mapping festival and was uploaded to Vimeo earlier today. Andreas says he heard further rumors that Codanova are planing to release the controller in a month, “but they’re French, so I don’t trust ’em”, Andreas added. I’ve contacted Codanova about this and they say that they will release it in September. No word on pricing yet.

It looks like it’s somewhere between a touch interface like the Lemur or iPad and a traditional controller with regular buttons, knobs and faders. The only similar product I can think of is Stanton’s SCS 3 system. The layout of the VMX Activ8 is made specifically for the Modul8 VJ software but I’m pretty sure that it will work with most VJ programs. I’m not sure if this controller is as tactile as I want it to be, but hey it’s beer proof god damn it and I’ll probably buy it, or as Andreas said, “you’d buy anything with a midi logo on it”.

Andreas will write about their Mapping Festival adventures within the next few days, stay tuned!

Published by The MIDI Thief

I started VJing in 2003 after being introduced to the topic by my friend, the digital artist, Marius Watz. “My style can be expressed as intensively colorful compositions with rhythm based animations of images and particles combined with a modest amount of video loops. I try not to continuously fill upp the whole screen with graphics in an attempt to illuminate the feel of a square screen. I work mostly with my own material that occasionally gets mixed up with stuff from the lost and found department. I like programming my own modules for Modul8, my favorite VJ software.”

2 replies on “New beer proof Midi controller”

  2. I asked Codanova if they did beer proof covers for the Macbooks but they say they didn’t and that it probably would be a heating issue. But if you put the MPB on a laptop stand, you are pretty much out of harms way from drunken beer drinkers (and yourself).

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