New MIDI Association Member embodme releases Erae Touch MIDI 2.0 ready controller

Exclusive interviews with the embodme team from their offices in Paris 

It's always exciting to see something new. On a recent trip to Paris, we got a chance to visit one of the newest members of the MIDI Association, embodme and meet their whole development team that had just finished up and shipped the first units of their Erae Touch MIDI 2.0 ready controller. 

Erae Touch Overview 

 The Erae Touch is a MIDI controller that builds on many recent developments in MIDI.  

Hardware: 

• Large18 inch X,YZ silicon control surface
• +1000 sensors for extreme accuracy
  
• Customizable layouts
• Can be played by hands or drum sticks
• MIDI 2.0 ready

It certainly takes advantage of MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) and MIDI 2.0. 

Design 

We had a chance to play with several early prototypes the embome had at their offices.  The surface of the early prototypes had a lot of friction and it was a bit hard to glide over the surface.  With some input from Roger Linn, embodme modified the final overlay and the version they are shipping feels great and is very, very precise.

Exclusive MIDI Association Interviews with the embodme team 

 The ERAE Touch demonstrated with Audio Modeling physical modeled Strings

Some creative sound design possibilities with the ERAE Touch

Playing drums using the ERAE Touch

Interview with Edgar and Etienne about the technical development of the ERAE Touch and how MPE and MIDI 2.0 influenced their decisions.  The ERAE Touch uses MIDI 2.0's Univeral MIDI Packet as its internal data format. 

embodme 

It's impressive that the embodme team was able to download the MIDI 2.0 spec and implement the Universal MIDI Packet in their product without even talking to any one in the MIDI Association,  but we are very glad to have them as a member of the MIDI Association now.