Production for INSTRUMENT 1 On Schedule, Pre-order Referral Program Coming Soon

18 Sep 2015

The INSTRUMENT 1 from Artiphon (image via artiphon.com)

[Update, 9/19: Artiphon replied via Twitter that they're evaluating MPE for the INSTRUMENT 1.]

The INSTRUMENT 1 is a unique MIDI controller by Nashville-based music tech startup Artiphon.  They ran a successful Kickstarter campaign (raising $1.3M with more than 3k backers) that started back in March of this year and they're working towards a ship date of early 2016 for campaign backers.

An update went out to backers yesterday saying that the Artiphon team is in the final stages of the design for manufacture phase of the production lifecycle and things are on target schedule-wise.  In addition to the production update, Artiphon also announced that they're planning to open up an invite-only pre-order sale where backers can refer folks who are interested in ordering an INSTRUMENT 1 but missed out on the Kickstarter campaign.

The INSTRUMENT 1 will ship with an iOS companion app and can, of course, be used as a controller for any MIDI sound source.  I'm pretty excited to try one out.  It's ostensibly not as sophisticated as, say, the nascent Seaboard RISE from Roli - as far as I can tell the INSTRUMENT 1 doesn't support the Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression MIDI spec - but it's nonetheless a versatile controller that should make MIDI more accessible to guitarists in particular.

It's great to get some insight into the production process for hardware instruments from an innovative upstart company.  Hopefully production will continue to progress smoothly and come January we'll have a new instrument to add to the burgeoning field of innovative and more expressive MIDI controllers.