Will there be an Instrument 2 : Artiphon

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Toys Samurai

started a topic almost 2 years ago

I actually thinking of buying another Instrument 1. After seeing the Sensel Morph being discontinued, I am a little worry that Instrument 1 will follow its footstep, since it appears that Artiphon is putting more resources into Orba instead of Instrument. However, being I spend the money to do that, I would like to see if there's any chance an Instrument 2 would be released any time soon. If yes, I would rather wait for it!

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Christopher Finn

said 12 months ago

Let’s face it, the Orba is really lame compared to the instrument one and I think the problem with the instrument one is that the fretboard and the battery is not replaceable so it’s more like a toy that once it’s done it’s gonna end up in a landfill and it’s not really an instrument which should be some thing that will go on and on and that you can keep passing on or sell to new people. The fact that it’s rubber and it wears away so easily from sliding and stuff makes it crazy to spend that much money on it and then have it just die in like a year. All they had to do was at least make the fretboard replaceable and then they could charge people even like $50 for a piece of rubber once a year, which would be fine in my opinion. And if they could somehow make it, so the frets are similar to a guitar where they get smaller and smaller as you get down to the other end would be much better. This way someone who’s used to playing a regular guitar can immediately switch over to the instrument one and play that. It’s great because people that are used to guitar and want to get into MIDI COULD JUST PRETTY MUCH INSTANTLY PICK ONE UP AND JUST GET USED TO IT FOR A FEW DAYS AND THEY’RE OFF. PERSONALLY, I GOT MINE BECAUSE I INJURED MY RIGHT WRIST AND LITERALLY COULDN’T PLAY A REGULAR GUITAR ANYMORE AND THE FACT THAT YOU CAN JUST SET IT UP AS A TAP GUITAR IS AWESOME. I SINCERELY HOPE THAT EVEN IF THEY DON’T MAKE ANOTHER ONE THAT’S BETTER (I accidentally hit the all caps.) that somebody out there does because it really is a great new way for a guitar player that even just has one usable hand can still play. And I would literally pay $500 for a new one if it was a little bit better and had a replaceable battery and was a little bit less like a toy. I understand. It Hass to be lightweight but the plastic makes it a little bit like a toy. if they made one with carbon fiber or something like that, then it would be a real instrument and it would have to be made in a way where the fretboard doesn’t just deteriorate. And obviously the battery would have to be replaceable. I hope someone out there reads this and make some thing like that because this was just the first version of an idea and let’s face it. It’s a great idea. It’s just sad that it’s some thing that’s going to end up in a landfill in a year or two

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Brian Sheppard

said 8 months ago

I have several major issues with Instrument 1, and I abandoned it after a few years to focus on the Seaboard. But I'd consider buying an Instrument 2 if certain things were fixed:

1. The bridge. If you use a pick it not only makes a loud noise and tears off the rubber but also prevents you from doing fast alternating down-up-down-up strums. A thumb works better but there's too much painful friction on the skin: practicing an hour a day, I kept developing blisters and callouses which eventually got scraped away from the friction. Then I'd develop new callouses and they'd fall off too. In addition to being painful, it's almost certainly not good for my thumb.

While it looks like Chorda's version of the bridge does away with the friction issue, it seems like it doesn't have enough of a tactile component? I'd also like be able to quickly alternate between strumming and fingerpicking.

For me, the ability to strum is the primary advantage of Instrument 1 over the Seaboard.

2. More Smart Strum options. I was able to effectively get the same effect using MidiFlow, but it was extremely tedious and time-consuming. Let us program our own smart strum.

It would also be good to let us program in a sequence of chords that we can then strum to the tempo of the song. That will sync with the DAW's record button. So for example 110 bpm, first half of bar 1 is chord A, second half of bar 1 is chord B, bar 2 is all chord C, etc.

3. Allow for simultaneous use of slide and fret-bending. Many MPE virtual instruments have extra polyphonic expressions mapped to the vertical Slide on instruments like the Seaboard while also using Glide for polyphonic pitch bend. Instrument 1 lacks that capability, but could easily have it if we were able to use one of slide or fret-bending for pitch bends and the other for the MPE Slide/Timbre control.

4. Make Slide more sensitive and expressive. While I like it, it's a lot worse than the Seaboard.

5. Get rid of the Mode button and replace it with something that sends midi out. Or let us choose what it does.

6. Definitely keep Tilt, but make it so we can set what counts as 0 tilt. That would let us use Tilt while having the Instrument 1 with the shoulder strap on a diagonal so it doesn't get in the way of playing keyboard-like controllers like the Seaboard.

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Toys Samurai

said 8 months ago

A thumb works better but there's too much painful friction on the skin: practicing an hour a day, I kept developing blisters and callouses which eventually got scraped away from the friction.

Not that I don't agree with you, but it's no match when comparing to playing a real guitar. That said, I do agree that strumming is problematic on Instrument 1 whether you are using fingers or a pick. Pieces of the plastics kept falling off when I strum.