If you’ve seen images of Monolake performing, you may have wondered about the unique instrument he uses, the Monodeck II:

In this video, Monolake jams with the Monodeck II:

Monolake, aka Robert Henke, uses a custom MIDI controller, along with Max, to control Ableton Live. He calls the Monodeck II “an industrial grade prototype.”

Here’s Henke’s story of the history of the custom electronic music controller:

“I started with first sketches for Monodeck II in summer 2005. The hardware was finished one year later, the development of a new Monolake live show took another six month. The first concert with Monodeck II was a very successful show in Vilnius / Lithuania. Monodeck II allows me to perform concerts with a very high degree of freedom and room for improvisation without even looking at the computer screen. Monodeck II controls a mixer, a battery of effects units, a large number of software instruments and an arbitrary number of MIDI loops hosted in Ableton Live. At any time of the performance I can access any part of it, play a bassline from one track together with an altered version of a drumgroove from another one, leaving interesting momentary states with tiny alteraltions in sound for a longer period of time or jump back and forth between different parts to create breaks of all sorts, while muticolor LEDs provide constant optical feedback and facillitate navigation thru my set.”

Photo: TheBeej, Monolake