Fretless Fader, a turntablist device.
A device from John Beez, that combines pitch control and cross fader into one X/Y device. Impressive, but I can’t help thinking it would be a lot easier to do digitally…
Looks like Fader FX but with the Xfader instead of the line fader.
The tactile of it looks nice though. Would be an easy addition onto a Midi Fighter.
Phil.
that’s pretty cool.. especially with the major/minor chords..
so he’s changing the key of the sound coming from the deck? i am seeing that right?
pretty cool.
could be done digital using gater effect for cutting and mapping a knob to key correction, so you have enough hands. kind of what i have now, but my button for setting the gate up, turns key correction off to avoid any unwanted digitisation of sound. and then key knob changes gate length.
or on the xy of the nano, map x-fade on left/right and key on up/down
both of those ideas would have limits compared to what he’s doing though.
What up, thanks for sharing my video. To clear up any speculation, the Fretless Fader controls the turntable’s rpm through midi messages. The sound is pure analog, the vinyl is real, and the turntable is real. That’s the original motivation for this device, it enables you to scratch a single sound on vinyl and create a melody simultaneously, all while keeping your hands directly on the vinyl and fader. This fills a void that was originally thought to be solved with a MIDI footpedal similar to a wah or volume pedal, but Vestax dropped that from development.
Naturally this isn’t the only application for an XY fader setup such as this, but for the few people that are into making music with a turntable this adds a whole new dimension and melodic expression to what was once thought of as strictly a percussive instrument.
so the up/down motion is controlling the pitch fader? sweet
seen things like this done with just the normal fader, but this is a big improvement on that
I like the control idea, I love the smoothness of your implementation and I really like how you’ve made some melodic demos that aren’t just a “proof of concept” racket from an untrained user.
I think the XY control has uses far beyond merely pitching that specific make of turntable and it’s an excellent, musical, tactile device that instantly suggests additional uses rather than just being designed for one specific task. All the best tools have multiple uses. I’d willingly swap out a platter on a VCI100 for one of these.
Looking forward to see you commercialize the idea and, if so, where you take it next. Oh, and thanks for dropping by!
Sick!!!
This would be amazing on a midi fighter. could add so much more depth to scratching/juggling/button mashing routines. Can it be used with the tech 1200 or only vestax?
That was awesome.
@Haze… the FF needs a MIDI capable device to work so no 1200s.
Decks that have MIDI and will work are the Vestax Controller One, PDX-3000, and the Numark CDX and HDX.
Not necessarily a Vestax, but it does have to be Midi (although I think the Vestax is the only commercially available midi TT). But at $2k just for the TT, this nice little project could get expensive fast.
Still thinking about how to do this one digitally…
Phil.
Edit: already corrected by the man himself. P.S. Welcome to DJTT!!
You could do with midi if you were midi scratching the decks (but not with timecode without the right decks).
I don’t think it would be much of a problem to transfer this idea to Traktor using BMTP. You could use a cc to control the key adjust in Traktor. First, you’d need to “create a scale” by noting what values on the CC corresponded with your desired scale steps. Then you would write a translator that quantized the CC output to those desired values. You could use this idea to also use notes to drive the key adjust knob. This would probably be the better way to go because it would give you instant random access to particular note values, and it could be played with a traditional keyboard.
I really like that, so simple (as in the idea, not the execution) but really effective!!!
Good on you John!!!
This is amazing and beautiful.