Akai MidiMix

A long time a ago Andy, a very wise friend of mine, explained why so many computer people were also into photography. “You see” he said. “All computers do pretty much the same thing. Once you’ve bought a computer it is hard to convince yourself to buy another one, since it will do the same stuff as the one you already have. But photography is different. There are no end of lenses, tripods, filters, case, straps flashes and whatnot that you can hanker after”. He was right too. But I think I’ve found something even worse than photography. It’s called music.

For me the crucial difference is that I can do photography (a bit) but I can’t really do music. So I tend to hanker after new music kit just to avoid facing the awkward truth that I can’t actually play any of it.

Anyhoo, enough of my neurosis for now. I’ve just got myself an Akai MidiMix MIDI control surface that I can use to twiddle the settings in my synthesizers. It turns out that you can get an awfully large number of knobs and sliders (and even a few lights) for what seems a pretty reasonable outlay. And I’m going to investigate what else I can control using MIDI messages. Which should keep me off the piano keyboard for a while….