Auxcide
Offline
The Multiverse ::: [CA, Sac]
jefftheworld wrote:

The arcade buttons are actually surprisingly comfortable. I guess that's because I have experience with both keyboards and arcade machines.

However, for those of you who don't have experience with arcade hardware I saw a classical pianist step up to the Pianocade and he had no trouble playing Flight of the Bumblebee. This isn't someone involved in the project who'd been practicing all day long,  it was just a average musician.

Well that's refreshing to hear. smile

A. Square
Offline
kitsch wrote:

thanks so much for chiming in to this thread!  we love talking to the brains wink

My pleasure! I'm happy to answer any questions.

jefftheworld wrote:

This isn't someone involved in the project who'd been practicing all day long,  it was just a average musician.

To be fair, he was hardly AVERAGE: dude could play any song I called out. "Rhapsody in Blue?" "How's that go again? Oh yeah!" <plays it perfectly>. I got his contact info, I'm going to have him do a demo video as soon as our schedules line up.

Saskrotch
Offline
Chicago IL
jefftheworld wrote:

The arcade buttons are actually surprisingly comfortable. I guess that's because I have experience with both keyboards and arcade machines.

However, for those of you who don't have experience with arcade hardware I saw a classical pianist step up to the Pianocade and he had no trouble playing Flight of the Bumblebee. This isn't someone involved in the project who'd been practicing all day long,  it was just a average musician.

just an average musician who knows how to play flight of the bumble bee

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas
jefftheworld wrote:

classical pianist

jefftheworld wrote:

just a average musician.

neutral

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

You record some close-up demo videos of that guy playing it! I must say that the feature presentation video was kind of uninspiring, and the guy playing it live wasn't bad but it wasn't very interesting from a demo point of view.

jefftheworld
Offline
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Saskrotch wrote:
jefftheworld wrote:

The arcade buttons are actually surprisingly comfortable. I guess that's because I have experience with both keyboards and arcade machines.

However, for those of you who don't have experience with arcade hardware I saw a classical pianist step up to the Pianocade and he had no trouble playing Flight of the Bumblebee. This isn't someone involved in the project who'd been practicing all day long,  it was just a average musician.

just an average musician who knows how to play flight of the bumble bee

Compared to musicians who use hexadecimal tables to make music, yes.

I didn't mean average in terms of skill, I suppose the word "traditional" would have been better suited.

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

I'm not sure how using hexadecimal tables to make music is relevant to his ability to play this instrument, though. I think it looks kind of awkward still, but I'd like to see a video of a skilled player have a try on this.

ant1
Offline
uhajdafdfdfa

heh, for a moment i forgot that chiptunes were nothing more than songs with square waves in them / heh, for a moment i forgot that chiptunes was nothing more than cheap exploitation of video games nostalgia

smile hate this sooooOOOo much smile

ant1
Offline
uhajdafdfdfa

well i say cheap but it's $300

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas

ant1&2'd!

Battle Lava
Offline
ant1 wrote:

... for a moment i forgot that chiptunes was nothing more than cheap exploitation of video games nostalgia

smile hate this sooooOOOo much smile

This.

Last edited by Battle Lava (Sep 3, 2012 10:14 pm)

Auxcide
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The Multiverse ::: [CA, Sac]

pianocade

ant1 wrote:

smile hate this sooooOOOo much smile

SketchMan3
Offline
NC in the US of America

I'm not feeling the button width. Seems like it'd be awkward to do a simple major chord.

I like the idea of a chiptune keyboard with arps chords and stuff, but i'm not to keen on this design from a practical point of view. The again, I don't even like playing a computer keyboard musically. I much prefer piano keys. Arcade buttons for music just doesn't seem practical. Then again, perhaps a person  able to pull off a 100-hit combo would be well-equipped to to use this instrument efficiently.

The look does seem a bit gimmicky, and reeks of "didn't do the research" in terms of designing something that "forward-thinking" chiptune artists would respect, as you can see from above comments. I do find it ironic that people would see using new hardware with video-game controls as completely different from using old hardware with video game controls.

But I suppose this isn't designed for chiptuners, but for non-chiptuners who want to make nasty authentic chipped square-wave sounds without having to do it the old fashioned way.

I personally have no hate for the arcadey design. It looks fun. I'd definitely use it if I got one for free. And the midi would make it cool for hooking up to other consoles, making it more of a pre-built DiY arcade midi controller, what? Nobody hates DiY arcade button controllers, right? But I guess it's bad if it's actually made into a product... sad

Last edited by SketchMan3 (Sep 5, 2012 7:17 pm)

Grymmtymm
Offline
KC
jefftheworld wrote:

just an average musician who knows how to play flight of the bumble bee.

the average musician can't play flight of the bumblebee, that's not an average kind of  song..................

Saskrotch
Offline
Chicago IL
Grymmtymm wrote:
jefftheworld wrote:

just an average musician who knows how to play flight of the bumble bee.

the average musician can't play flight of the bumblebee, that's not an average kind of  song..................

OH SHIT REALLY THANK YOU FOR CLARIFYING