specialwaves is a new brand musical instrument with the goal to give DJ’s, producers and musicians something new, original, customizable and updatable. ‘mine’ is designed for people who are looking for a highly customizable, expandable and reconfigurable product. ‘mine’ is a modular midi controller composed by a case suitable to accommodate modules made of single electronic interfaces in order to offer the maximum flexibility in the creation of its configuration. the modules can be inserted into the case or removed at will like LEGO,  creating a large number of possible configurations.

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
mine: holds up to 64 modules

 

 

at the moment the designed modules are five: ‘pad’; ‘2 buttons’; ‘pot’; ‘encoder’; and ‘fader’. each module is made with a body of polymeric material that protects and covers the electronic components. the module can be connected to the motherboard through small connectors under the module. these connectors enable the transfer of information between the individual interface modules and the motherboard of mine.

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
board finished in wood effect

 

 

each module can be placed both in horizontal and vertical position allowing more flexibility of its use. for example, a fader can be placed in a vertical position in order to adjust volume of a channel, or in a horizontal position and used as the cross-fader. when inserting the modules, these are automatically blocked thanks to the two clips on the chassis, which are inserted into the slots on the motherboard. the modules become stable once inserted within the case and to remove them two special extractors has to be used to extract the clip.

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
motherboard open to configuration

 

 

currently two versions are available: ‘mine’ and ‘mine S’. ‘mine’ consists of a matrix of 8 × 8 (rows x columns), that allows the insertion of a maximum of 64 modules; while ‘mine S’ is an 8×4 matrix and can accommodate up to 32 modules. a standard USB port allows users to connect the controller to PC / mac and this is also used to power the controller. when many modules are connected with LED the intensity of lights could be less bright. for this reason, extra power can be supplied  to increase the light intensity of the LEDs when you consider it appropriate.

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
crossfader fitted

 

 

the dedicated controller editor is able to automatically recognize the type of module, its position and orientation. simply add a module and screen configuration software pops-up. it is also possible to modify parameters of each individual module (e.g. the encoder acceleration) and save the settings directly on the module.

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
detects type of module automatically  

 

 

 specialwaves will be reaching out for crowdfunding on both ‘mine’ and ‘mines’ via kickstarter over the forthcoming days.

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
one USB for power/connection to mac or PC

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
intuitive user layout

mine modular controller LEGO designboom
mine: holds up to 64 modules

mine modular controller LEGO designboom