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UniqueSquared

UniqueSquared
May 9, 2013

Livepad For iPad Inspired By Novation LaunchPad

Take a look at the types of cellular phones that are in existence today.  Many of them look very close to each other, so close that I’d have no problem saying that they got their ideas from each other.  Some of them ask for permission first and pay their royalties later, and some just use the same format without even asking for permission.  The average consumer doesn’t understand the legal troubles that go into the design of each phone.  Millions of dollars have been paid on each side for what is essentially stealing property and intellectual design.  Does this same phenomenon exist within the DJ industry?

I’ve wondered this, since there have any many apps that have basically copied the design of existing software or hardware.  Many times, it is done through the same company, but it has also been done by third parties without their permission as well.  Users …

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UniqueSquared

UniqueSquared
May 7, 2013

The Meganome

I wonder where the term square came from.  I don’t mean the geometric shape or the term that gets tossed around math classes, but the term square which is given to nerds or people that live too normal of a life.  It is easy to laugh and call someone a square because their lives are quite simple and ordinary – but the square, at least in our reality, is king.  Everything is a square in some shape or form.  A house a made of six squares and so is a car.  Wallets and credit cards do not come in oval or circular shapes; there come in share or rectangle shapes – so ultimately it is the square which will win.

Controllers tend to stick to the square shape.  Why is that?  Clearly it would be much easier to deliver equal pressure to a round or finger-shaped pad, yet it is …

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UniqueSquared

UniqueSquared
May 6, 2013

Christopher Willits on Playing Grids of Push

The inherent beauty of controllers like the Ableton Push and the Novation Launchpad is that the button layout is mean to be configured exactly how the user wants it.  Gone are the days when MIDI controllers were labeled for specific uses.  In fact, if you sell a controller that has titles under each button – you will be selling less of them.  For this reason, the square basic setup is almost always desirable.  It adds somewhat of a third dimension on a two dimensional platform, allowing you to move up and down instead of just left and right on a controller.

Organizing your button configuration is really an art of its own.  With smaller eight button controller it is easy to set it and forget it, but you will need to be much more clever if you want to use something with sixty four buttons instead.  One artist has found …

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UniqueSquared

UniqueSquared
April 12, 2013

NOVATION LAUNCHKEY SERIES

While Novation might be famous for their affordable Launchpad and their Dicers, you should not mistake them with a company that produces cheap or disposable products.  By and large, most of what they create is built to last, and their upper end products aren’t cheap by any means.  When you produce a device that isn’t capable of acting on its own (like a pure MIDI controller), it will naturally be sold at a cheaper price, since more of them can be made easily.  But when you try to combine both a standalone instrument with a MIDI controller that is where it gets interesting.

You might be in the market for only a digital keyboard that is capable of being connected to your computer, but you might also enjoy the ability to use it as a controller for another instrument altogether.  Why would you go for something like a backing keyboard …

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UniqueSquared

UniqueSquared
April 9, 2013

Bhoreal: RGB Grid as Open Source Hardware

We would like to see unusual form become the norm of DJ equipment, but just like every other facet in life, the box wins.  Our houses are a gigantic box, our computer screens are box, and our cars are a box on wheels – naturally DJ equipment would be shaped as a box as well, right?  Maybe it is the golden ratio that draws us to perfect rectangles, but squares and square shaped units are just as desirable.  The Novation Launchpad is the perfect example of a squared device that comes symmetrically laid out on each side.  Producers and DJs love them and will continue to as long as we desire the box shape.

The Launchpad, and more specifically, its shape, is something of an old idea.  Controllers have actually been built in this design before, but at higher cost and by companies who cannot mass produce them as …