YAELTEX Midi controllers

Been talking with a fried about wanting a couple joystick controllers, he found me this.
Anyone around here used these, sen them? Looks really cool.

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Just discovered the company today.

You can customize your own controller thru their website and see how much it costs depending on the components you add.

Based in Argentina, worth looking at it I think as it’s always hard to find a controller with all the specs you need, and just that.

Standard 5pin Midi In/Out and Midi Usb and power plug as well.

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Very nice ! Custom design and build. Quite a range of options.

Three different case sizes. RGB LED buttons in various arrangements and size. Arcade buttons. Sliders. Joysticks either with or without springs. Encoders with RGB LED rings. You can place images and text on a background.

It has both USB and DIN MIDI, plus Keystroke output, so that makes it quite flexible. Compatible with Mac, IOS, Android, Win, Linux, Raspberry, etc, no drivers needed. The device accepts MIDI i think to change colors and change LED ring position, not positive on that.

No scribble strips, which might be nice. Sounds like it is closed source, (ADDED: It is indeed open source.) so you couldn’t do fancier things like arpeggiation, or sequencing directly. But they have a browser app to change the controls around.

The MIDI can include: Send Notes, CC, NRPN, RPN, Pitch bend, Program change. They say 8 banks so i think that means up to 8 different selectable arrangements, (can the banks be actively switched?), i’m unsure on this, confused by the video.

Here’s a video on KiloWhat their configuration browser app:

Looks like they took the place where Livid at one time was.

KiloWhat looks super flexible and in my search for a controller this sounds optimum but the fact they don’t have serial and make each controller after it is ordered has its drawback as a high price tag.
When you add the delivery and importation taxes, it starts to be pricey.

Also they don’t seem to have velocity sensitive pads available.
I thought to hear or read the software was open source.

Altough i would not recommend their services for a low entry range controller, if you have special needs it looks optimum.

You can read the FAQ on their website. IIRC multiple channel sending, multi routing options, double CC message at once, …

Some info there: https://youtu.be/7pSbDrndUtk

Yes it is, i see.

Interesting. I just checked out their website. Cool idea and the finished products look nice though I suppose that’s subject to taste. I’m a little bit surprised I haven’t seen a company doing this before.
The price is high for sure, too rich for my blood, but honestly I don’t see how it could not be considering the business model. Custom one-off stuff is always way more expensive to produce. I’ve hacked together custom midi controllers for myself (using whatever parts I had laying around) and I wouldn’t try offering it as a pro service unless it was for top dollar.

Livid has a more or less DIY version of this.

Shantea OpenDeck is another similar DIY thing.

Tinami is the only other thing close:

ADDED:
I think it’s worth mentioning as alternatives to these, various MIDI controller devices that handle configurability in software. Prominent among these would be: Sensel Morph, Joué Play, the Erae Touch from Embodme, and then various things on the iPad like Lemur in particular.

Actually considering it’s a small company and their business model flexibility and the apparent quality it is not that expensive. The knock off for me comes from the taxes/transportation.

I’m from Argentina as well and although I don’t own any of their controllers I’ve heard nothing but great things :slight_smile:
A friend of mine is going to have one soon

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I was unaware of those. Cool.

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I didn’t mean to suggest it was a bad price/ value. It looks like you’re paying a higher price but getting a higher quality product. Just saying it’s a lot of money for a midi controller, much like faderfox, etc. If I was well-to-do I’d have them make me something and I hope that people with the means do so.

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Another use for this where cost would be less of a factor would be if someone was prototyping a product. I noticed in one of the questions on the Yaeltex website, someone asked if their was enough space inside the box for additional hardware, like a hw or sw synth. Apparently there is some.

Not sure how adaptable the software on the processor that Yaeltex uses, but that might be another way to quickly rig a product prototype.

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I had a mail conversation with them a cpl of years ago about ordering a controller from them…
They were super helpful and nice but the controller I wanted ended up costing $400 exl. VAT, shipping and import from Argentina to Sweden… so although it seems like a really great company, buying from Europe will be expensive…

The controller I was looking at had 2 joysticks 8 pots 4 faders and some buttons. So it wasn’t that big…

What did you do instead? — that sounds like it would have been a cool controller, without regard to price.

Yeah, it probably would have been awesome!

I went with a Faderfox uc4 instead, which is great, but the Yaeltex would probably been way cooler

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