The latest episode of SequencerTalk features an interview with Romain Giannetti, founder of Kiviak Instruments, which recently introduced the WoFi Sampling Synthesizer.
Giannetti introduces the Wofi, discusses features and also demos the cool sounds that it is capable of making.
The WoFi is a sampling keyboard that can emulate classic samplers, but also do granular synthesis. You can sample directly to it, with the microphone or via line in. Sampled sounds can be played using the two-octave keyboard or via the step sequencer. It’s designed for portable convenience and features a built-in speaker.
Official details are still to be announced. It looks like the WoFi keyboard will be making its official debut at Superbooth 2023. In the meantime, you can find out more via the Kiviak Instruments Instagram and Facebook pages.
via Dean Freud
ugh, facial hair.
Ugh, prejudice.
Looks like a futuristic Akai Timbre Wolf
The French designed one of the best synthesizers ever built the RSF Polykobol now I have my fingers crossed for the best sampler.
Unfortunately, when you look into it, this company also does cloud platform management.
What that means is that you can save your samples onto a ““proprietary cloud platform” with this sampler. That’s quite cool, however if this isn’t a big success that proprietary cloud platform will probably disappear.
Also no SD card, just a cartridge (a proprietary one at that).
The thing looks great, and probably performs great, but why lock your self into a proprietary eco system?
I wish them all the best and hope they succeed, but if they don’t that proprietary cloud platform won’t be around either. And buying additional proprietary cartridges long after will be very, very expensive.
Here is a link by the designer and it clearly shows no SD card and their proprietary cartridge.
https://www.alandry.com/portfolios/wofi/
Hopefully my fears are unfounded and we’ll learn more at NAMM or similar. But as it is this doesn’t appeal to me.
From what I hear, it seems to be very difficult these days to get any funding, be it by an investor or in form of a bank loan, for business models that don’t involve a continuous and predictable revenue stream. Even if you start as a crowdfunded company, you might want to implement a subscription model right away to keep the door open for future investments. This way you avoid adding it later, which has proven to be very unpopular with users. Maybe that’s why so many companies go this route lately.
I appreciate what your saying, and your right in saying that it’s best to implement a subscription model right away.
Personally, I don’t care if the cloud saves are subscription based of free to use. My biggest gripe is the use of a proprietary cartridge rather than a standard SD card.
I’ve been around long enough to remember all the various memory card variations (smart media, compact flash, xd card to name a few) and it was a pain. Yeah, technology will advance and change happens, but this seems like a poor choice to me.
As these cartridges are proprietary they will cost more than a standard SD card and the actual WoFi itself will cost more to manufacture as a proprietary card slot will surely cost more than an off the shelf SD one.
Also, in say 30 years time you pick one up second hand. Are the cloud saving servers still running? Of course not, but you can still save your samples on those cartridges. Which are probably very expensive by then due to their proprietary nature and low manufacture numbers (compared to SD card).
That’s my concern. And I think it’s a very valid one as I imagine this will cost a considerable amount when released.
Obviously, we don’t know everything about it yet. Hopefully my concern is unfounded and I’ve written this long post for nothing!
Don’t get me wrong, I think subscription models are mostly a terrible idea and only serve the shareholders, not the users. I just tried to shed a light on the reasons behind this trend. I will not buy any music hardware that requires a cloud-service to work.