Comments on: Monome Controlling Ableton Live With SevenUp

By: Illu

Illu — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 23:50:24 +0000

The monome is open source hardware. alex you are only partially right. the arduino based monome clones you are speaking of are slightly cheaper but as many have found out they are more difficult to assemble. the deal with the monome is that it has very, very good build quality. basically there is an entire community of people who are developing new ways to work with the monome format in a diy capacity or otherwise and another thing that many people have discovered is that a specialized enclosure of the sort the monome needs is expensive.in fact it comes out to about the same price or even more when you try to build your own out of wood and aluminum.. (depending on sources, materials etc.)that face plate has to be lasered or water cut and it is an integral part of the monome’s architecture. sure there are ways around it (tupperware etc.) but ultimately you have a well crafted thing of beauty in your hands when you purchase a monome pre-assembled. if you look at most boutique small run electronics you will find the price comparable. there are keyboard based midi controllers with really bad action for about the same price btw.

By: Aaron M

Aaron M — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:36:49 +0000

I saw Brian Crabtree and Kelly Cain give a talk about their company and the monome earlier this year and there is a lot more to it than a simple machine anyone could develop in a couple weeks.

One part they emphasized greatly was the kind of personal decisions that contribute to their production process. They source their materials as local as possible and only from companies that meet higher environmental and ethical standards. Also, if you’ve ever used a Monome, you know that the build quality on these things is really nice. I’m sure if they had the things manufactured and assembled in China (and did bigger production runs), they could get them out a lot cheaper, but that would be fundamentally conflicted with their philosophy.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:57:08 +0000

@Mike: Its not the discovery of the century, its a very simple idea basically. Its materials cost very very cheap and most (if not all) of the free software is made by users and not by the company. Anyone can make an open piece of hardware like Monome much more cheaper…there are many cheap hardware platforms to help you develop your own “Monome” in less than a week and at half or less cost…

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:26:55 +0000

I agree with Alex, that is is very expensive… but I understand they are made in limited runs by a small company. So by supporting Monome, you are supporting artists like yourselves… not some huge corp like Korg ect…. In the end… it would be great if you could get a Monome for 100 dollars or so… maybe one day

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:20:25 +0000

@Alex: You’re paying for a completely open piece of hardware with a big option of free software to run with it. It’s absolutely worth it.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:05:22 +0000

Yes, but the price is still very high for some led/buttons combos IMO…

By: Max

Max — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:44:48 +0000

Wow, thanks for this posting – didn’t know about SevenUp yet. Gonna try this soon!
@Alex: It’s the fun of pressing real Buttons and having the response of the LEDs. And there are so many applications/patches/plugins for the monome – i could spend weeks just experimenting!

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:23:21 +0000

Monome is just too expensive for what it is and does…i can’t understand why people are so excited about it…