Podcast 157: Keith McMillen

NOTE: This podcast is the fifth and final interview in our collaboration with Synthtopia.com on expressive MIDI controllers developments. You can listen to the podcast here, on the Synthtopia website (in an embedded player) or on iTunes. But you can also read the interview as well as search for information by viewing the transcription on at the following location: http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2016/12/25/keith-mcmillen-interview-modern-instruments-should-combine-traditional-expressiveness-with-new-power/ Back in podcast episode #54, I talked to Keith McMillen about his background, his experiences in developing new musical tools, and the development of his 'smart fabric' technology that is at the heart of KMI's controllers. This time - and on the success of the Kickstarter funding of the K-Board Pro 4 - we talk with him about his experiences working on expressive controllers, and his long term goal of making every instrument able to interact with the computer. I like talking to people with large visions, and Keith is right there: he'd like to change the world by making instruments more expressive and responsive, reduce latency to nothing - and also change the way that composers document their work so that it is available across technologies and implementations. These visions are the 'hard work' of what we need to do in electronic music, and Keith is simple not scared off by the difficulty of the task. I hope you enjoy this discussion - we are pretty wide-ranging in the discussion, but in the end get to see the grand unifying vision of Keith's view of the future, and even what steps he may take to see them through. Enjoy!