Enter the Livid Block
Been thinking about this purchase for a while. I had to make a choice on 1. another toy that makes sound to add what i do already, or 2. a toy that changes the way I perform sound.. I opted to change my technique and bought the Livid Block NE.
LIVID INSTRUMENTS
First off, Livid is a small company, but done with extreme professionalism. The Block arrived with a checklist of points where it was examined for build quality and functionality, signed by the tech. I also received a special postcard to assist with registration and it was hand signed by the guy that build the Block. SO right off the bat, I can contact the company if there are any issues and refer to actual people that actually did the work. I love that feeling-knowing your shit was not force made in China. Now on to the goodies.
The Block arrives, I tear it out of the box and immediately check all the knobs, buttons, sliders. I am a freak when it comes to build quality. This thing is solid, wood casing, aluminum faceplate, really solid pots and faders, a tactile sci-fi dream.
It has one port- for USB, I plug it into the PC and fire up Cubase, just to see if it reacts. It does, in seconds I am jamming out on Reaktor, playing sounds and adjusting parameters just like a regular keyboard based controller.
There is a freeware prog to change all the elements of the Block. I had a little issue with this because my most current version of Quicktime would not support it. I had to roll-back to the previous version, and I received help on this through the Livid forum [which is brilliant, full of smart people and cool ideas]
After this minor setback I was back in business. Also I had a bunch of new ideas from the forum on setting up this beast to emulate a Monome
Like using the Monome apps 64STEP and MLR, which were very easy to set up with the MonomeBridge that Livid supplies from their website. I was jamming, using the Block as a brilliant step sequencer, playing other synths and noise devices live to accompany it. This is a great live performance tool. My next experiment is to use it with a glitch type program and see how it can effect my writing technique. I should be able to program the block to control multiple VST FX and build crazy noisescapes and rhythmic productions. I will post more updates when I have something to hear along side these descriptions.