I wondered if anyone else had used calculators as music controllers. The answer? But of course. Here’s a classic Russian calculator model controlling arrangements in Ableton Live. It appears in this example as though this is working as a USB (QWERTY) keyboard substitute, rather than as a MIDI controller, but you get more of the same potential from all those wonderful buttons.
This find comes to us from Toyo Bunko of Noise.io – themselves lovers of mobile technology, having built a sophisticated soft synth for the iPhone. Toyo writes:
The page (in Russian) : http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124.html
And the video (instant download link) is here: http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124-a-dl.html
([Credited as] created by Zinus of "Diver Group").
The calculator model is Elektronika MK-52, it’s quite famous. More info on this calculator can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-52
He managed to connect the calculator via a USB interface which he took out from an old USB keyboard. So it basically acts like a keyboard controller.
If you’re out there, we’d love to hear more (or from anyone who can translate the Russian here). I expect I’m not the first to point to this, but the calculator music – by popular demand – continues!
Hi Peter,
if you only could read the comments to that post!
It's fabulous!
So sad I'm not that mighty in english to translate it 🙁
I think this is fake
No, it's not.
It's just a substitute of keyboard keys with keys of the calculator
Hi Peter
As you maybe know the russians are a quite poetic people..:) the text says:(Directly translated)
"In the beggining it was freezing
Then came the pre new years house cleaning.
Then a programmable microcalculator fell out of the closet.
After that a genius qwerty usb keybord fell out.
They fell out on the top of each other and stayed like that for a couple of minutes.
And they exchanged their fluids.
Now the calculator has an USB interface, but the keyboard lacks its brains.
But the most important thing: atleast now the program ableton Live can be adressed in its human session language"
the folowing coments are too amazing and will only work in russian..
great stuff:)
I want a Curta-based Live controller. Please, someone, anyone!
It looks interesting to me! Is quite useful to have a grid based interaction for samples, especially using Ableton.
The only problem is that, having a device which is viewed by the laptop as a keyboard makes the real keyboard almost useless since the visual map is different and you risk to mess up everything! But I like this tests anyway!
Keyboard as oscillator – no vid yet
http://www.fundamentalfrequency.com/hardware/cano…
The layout of the notes makes some things really hard but encourages other, less usual intervals
Sorry, that should be, "calculator as oscillator"
wait…why would you want to controller ableton live when you can control a Soyuz with device?
@regend: Why choose?
Does the calculator still work, or did they have to gut it?
Hallo!
Sorry all fo my bad english.
We a UKRAINIANS! Russian language at our site is for them, who come in without knowledge about our Country and our language.
Welcome to UA!
About MK52:
his buttons is in positions like clips in Ableton Live, so this was a target in creation.
🙂 bad kbd -> good organized controller.
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