https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/345524876/mine-modular-controller
While the industry continues to roll out an incessant stream of controllers in their own image, the ability to create on of your own has largely been in the realm of buying components and soldering them together. But then along came Special Waves, and set our hearts a beating with their chocolate box-esque model of controller DIY. And so impressed was our extended DJWORX family at Isotonik, that they’ve thrown in and will be supporting the project with their own software. And now you can too as it’s all just arrived on Kickstarter.
To refresh your memories, the Mine concept is to provide a simple flat board (square and half square) that you populate with a variety of components. It’s all class compliant so creating your own maps shouldn’t be a problem at all. You basically specify the size you want, and the components you want to come with it.
The Kickstarter packages reflect just how invested in the concept you want to be. For example, if you go for the bare bones Mine S with just 16 components, you can for example make up a 4×4 pad for the early bird price of €202. But if you really love this idea and the potential for ultimate configurability, You can go for the maximum Mine and Mine S package with an absolute boatload of components for the weighty sum of €1095.
It’s a project for the particularly demanding performer. There’s an established world of controllers of every shape and size out there. But Special Waves has the potential to really shake things up, especially as future components include jog wheels and LED screens. You’re definitely getting into the realms of true but importantly valid DIY controller building, rather than one off home-brew commercial unviable hack projects.
I genuinely hope this takes off. It could be the start of something that makes for a genuine change, and would help create an environment where the user has more choice and not have to bend to whatever is put in front of them by a select handful of manufacturers. For the vast majority however, off the shelf will be just fine.
Summing Up
The Kickstarter campaign is underway. At the time of writing, there’s 27 days to go, with €12K of the €150K pledged already. Good luck guys!