Highly Liquid News

Bent ‘08 Minneapolis Photos

Highly Liquid — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:53:42 +0000

Beatrix*Jar have posted a photostream from the 2008 Bent Festival in Minneapolis. Included are pictures from the MSA-R MIDI Decoder workshop conducted by Michael Una. Photos from the workshop begin here.

UMR Custom Enclosure

Highly Liquid — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:49:50 +0000

Roglok in Germany created this custom enclosure for the UMR universal MIDI retrofit. The i/o connections are exported to a DB-25 connector–which allows a variety of keyboards to be used with the box after a DIP switch adjustment. Music by Roglok and many others is available from the Upitup netlabel.

Robotic Percussion at Bent Festival 2008

Highly Liquid — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:32:30 +0000

Michael Una will conduct a MIDI robotic percussion workshop on Friday, May 2nd at Bent Festival Minneapolis. Participants will receive free MSA-R kits donated by Highly Liquid. The workshop is free and open to all on a first-come, first-served basis. More details available at the Bent Festival site.

A sampling of Michael’s Ableton Live & MSA-R-based instrumentation can be seen here (Vimeo) or here (YouTube).

DB-25 Panel Mount Plates Restocked

Highly Liquid — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:21:36 +0000

The popular DB-25 Panel Mount Plates have been restocked.

More Rock Band with MIDI Drums

Highly Liquid — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:35:52 +0000

The Rock Band MIDI drum modification discussion at the Rock Band Forums continues, approaching 1,000 posts. The detailed how-to has also been updated.

Below are some user-created MSA-P project enclosures for the mod.

Forum member bandaddy:

Forum member netgo:

Forum member k1ds3ns4t10n:

MIDI SysEx Tools

Highly Liquid — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:33:54 +0000

MIDI System Exclusive (”SysEx”) messages are used to configure Highly Liquid MIDI decoder products.

Bome’s SendSX (Windows) and SysEx Librarian (Mac) are stand-alone applications which make it easy to send SysEx configuration messages. Both are free to download.

More details can be found at the MIDI SysEx How-To.

Toy Array as Musical Instrument

Highly Liquid — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 03:53:28 +0000

Kaseo posted a new video response to the MSA-R MIDI-controlled Pikachu from the last user project roundup: an octet of toys, each tuned to a different pitch, sequenced through the MSA-R as a single instrument.

User Project Roundup, Part 2

Highly Liquid — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:24:42 +0000

MIDI kit user projects on the web:

MSA-T-controlled MIDI animatronic Halloween skull quartet (Mindshaft Music)
MSA-R-controlled MIDI circuit bent Pikachu (Kaseo)
Rock Band MSA-P MIDI drum mod demo using a Simmons SD7K
Modified Casio SK-8 with VCF and SKM MIDI retrofit (Graham Meredith)
Wii controller-triggered MIDISpeak & SKM (Bill Byrne)

Firmware Updates

Highly Liquid — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:11:29 +0000

Firmware has been updated for the MIDISpeak, MIDI2600, MPA, SKM and UMR kits. The updates address an incompatibility with some MIDI controllers & sequencers which can cause an imperfect note response. The recent MSA firmware update also addresses this issue.

Products purchased after February 1, 2008 include the updated firmware. Microcontroller ICs from earlier products may be returned for a free upgrade. Please send email for additional information.

Rock Band with Electronic Drums

Highly Liquid — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:04:33 +0000

Several Rock Band drummers have used the MSA-P to provide MIDI control over hacked game controllers, allowing the game to be played using an electronic drum set. The mod is supported by the recent MSA firmware update.

See the ongoing discussion at the Rock Band forums and a resulting how-to. David from Toronto created the diagram below and a demo video featuring the Roland VD-20.