Starr Labs controllers

Dear Harold,
I would have to say that I would not be interested in a velocity
insensitive keyboard of any configuration.
I agree that $3500 for a generalized keyboard is quite steep and is more
than I can afford as a hobbyist. However I did notice in examining Starr
Labs site that any of their MIDI controllers is usable as a generalized
keyboard because of their programmability and a feature called zoning.
"Zoning features allow up to 16 MIDI channels on the neck at the same time
assigned to rectangular zones of arbitrary size. Zones are independently
programmable for Base Volume, Channel, Patch number, Velocity, Tuning,
Transposition, and MIDI filter." Since the tuning you would use resides in
whatever MIDI sound module you are controlling, it's a simple matter to
program a tuning to match a zone on a per channel basis or per patch basis.
As a sometimes guitar player their Z-Tar guitar shaped controllers with
144 keys and 16 zones are quite appealing to me and are quite a bit more
affordable. They start at $1560. They also have a couple of table top
style controllers called the Z-Board and G-Board which feature 276 keys and
46! zones as well starting at $2750.
I don't mean to sound like a Starr Labs salesman here but I am impressed
with how programmable and versatile their regular MIDI controllers are.
Even those not designed specifically as generalized keyboards could be used
to escape the 7+5 format.
---Fred

---------------------------------------------------------
Fred Kohler, #7-240 Burnside Rd E, Victoria, BC, Canada
phone:(250)388-7918 email:Fred_Kohler@bc.sympatico.ca
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Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 20:36:51 -0800
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