Live Performance With The Artiphon Instrument 1

Sunday Synth Jam: This video captures a live Artiphon Instrument 1 set by Shoeg (Carlos Martorell).

The Artiphon Instrument 1 is a unique expressive MIDI controller that’s designed to be played in many ways – like a guitar, a violin, a cello, a drum controller and more.

The set was filmed for Barcelona local TV station (BTV) and features new songs, as well as songs from Vaseline.

Here’s what Martorell has to say about the technical details of his performance:

Set config is simple: Artiphon I1 + Behringer FCB1010 + Ableton + NI FM8.

I developed a couple of max patches to use acc/gyro sensor of I1 (via mod wheel CC) to play multi-octave strummed chords (like seen in the very beginning of the video).

6 thoughts on “Live Performance With The Artiphon Instrument 1

  1. Some might say it blurs the line between instrument and MIDI controller, but from my brief scan, I didn’t see much instrument, mostly trigger and tilt.

    I’m not judging the sound or music. It’s pretty cool and has it’s place. I’m just not all that inspired by the instrument itself.

  2. I enjoyed what he did, but its hard to imagine taking enough time from my usual working style to massage it into an expressive shape. Its a brilliant SIDE instrument, clearly good for ambient & left-field soloing, but unlikely to be the only tool of choice. Jarre has everything, so he’ll probably be seen with one eventually!

  3. In many ways, I’d rather have one of these than a guitar, though I prefer the layout of a keyboard over both.

    If I ever went back to the guitar layout, I’d want to do away with the physical strings, tuning, etc and purely use synthesis for the sound, so in that way the Artiphon is (hypothetically) appealing — especially comparing to the cost of a midi guitar.

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