Recording - June 2019 - 37

With all this configurability, it takes a
while to set up the Modules to do precisely what you think they should, and
along the way, you find favorites for
your workflow. I tend to use the Pads as
a grid keyboard rather than for drums,
I use the Strips for basic expression
control, and the Scaler is great fun for
quickly tossing out ideas with no wrong
notes. My personal favorite, though, is
the newly-added Grand Clavier, which
feels wonderful and is very playable despite its small size. It pretty much lives on
one of my two Joué Boards now, leaving
the other for everything else I like to do!
Swapping Modules as you play and
having the controller immediately reconfigure itself is a blast, and the surface
is engagingly tactile in response. The
Joué lets you have a whole variety of
different control surfaces in one portable
package.-DDG and MM
Prices: Joué Board, $449; Modules, $21
and up; discount bundles available
More from: Joué, play-joue.com

Artiphon
INSTRUMENT 1
The developers at Artiphon had a fairly
ambitious plan in mind when they created
the INSTRUMENT 1 controller. They wanted it to be playable in a wide variety of
ways to suit a wide variety of players; they
wanted it to be relatively self-contained,
for as complete a music making experience as possible; and they wanted it to
be configurable, to suit players who had
something else in mind than what they
were given. They also wanted it to be fun,
easy to start to use, rewarding of practice,
and equally rewarding to out-of-the-box
thinking. It's surprising how well they succeeded with their very first product!
The INSTRUMENT 1 looks and feels
like a toy at first, but appearances are
deceiving. While it's very light (under 2
lbs.), it's designed to take a beating, and
its 12-fret-by-6-string "fingerboard" with
raised rubber strings and frets is firm
but comfortable to play. There are six
raised rubber bars that form the Bridge,
and in between the Bridge and fingerboard are a pair of Capo buttons with
12 LED indicators (these can be used
to shift pitch by semitones or octaves,
RECORDING June 2019

37

depending on the program). A pushclick encoder can act as a volume
knob, MIDI controller (CC9), or to select
among memory slots. There's even an
onboard accelerometer to sense neck
tilt, and it autosenses whether it's being
played left- or right-handed.
It has no internal sounds, and must
be connected to a computer or iOS
device for full functionality. There's a
minijack on the underside for either a
pair of headphones or a headset mic,
a charging port for the power supply
(the internal battery lasts for several
hours of playing), an on/off switch with
charge-status LED, and a USB Mini-B jack.

It comes with a USB-A cable for computer use and a Lightning cable for iOS
use; this turns it into a combined MIDI
controller and audio interface if desired. It even has a pretty decent pair
of built-in speakers for playing on your
own without phones.
Even though the INSTRUMENT 1
looks a bit like a guitar, you don't have
to play it like one. There are four Modes
of playing response: Fretted, Fretless,
Grid, and Pad. This gives you the behavior of a guitar, bass, grid controller
(like an Ableton Push) with individually-programmable pitches for each fret/
string, or a row of 12 big drum pads
http://www.play-joue.com http://www.townsendlabs.com/reimagine http://www.townsendlabs.com
Recording - June 2019

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