Design your custom own MIDI controller online

There's currently a DIY boom going on in hi-tech music-making, but if you're not too handy with a soldering iron, how do you go about creating your own MIDI controller? Umidi thinks it has the answer, coming to the market with a message of "You design, we build".

Similar to Zayik, which was annoucned in 2011. Umidi enables you to spec up your controller online and then have it made real. Simply drag knobs, faders, encoders, jog wheels and push bottoms onto a 6x6 grid, choosing how they're positioned, coloured and lit. There are also 288 RGB LEDs that can be configured to do whatever you want.

Every Umidi controller is milled from a single piece of aluminium, is only 2.5cm thick, and weighs less than 1.4kg.

Currently the subject of a Kickstarter project, prices for a Umidi controller start at $895. If you can't afford that, maybe you can just design the controller online and then dream about what it might look like in the flesh.

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.