Genki’s Wave Ring is a small, wearable MIDI controller than can be mapped to numerous expression parameters, and manipulated by hand movement.
The Wave Ring contains three buttons, an LED display for visual feedback, as well as an adjustable strap to make things more comfortable. After installation, we’re ready to sync.
To use Wave, we need to download Softwave. This (free) software allows you to customise the parameters of the ring, and assists with mapping modulation movements to your DAW.
In Softwave we make a new preset and can now customise how we’d like our ring to interact. By choosing one of the six motions for each box, we edit the responsiveness of each expression (tilt, pan, roll, etc).
Next, we select CC values for each of our control boxes. Name our preset and activate our ring by clicking ‘Connect Wave’ in the top left of the interface.
Opening our DAW and our soft synth of choice (Mercury 4), we map corresponding modulation to the same CC values we’ve established in Softwave.
With our ‘pan’ movement assigned to VCF modulation, and Master Tuning and Delay Time to our ‘roll’ and ‘tilt’, respectively, we start exploring new – physical – ways of designing sounds.
Though you can trigger notes with the ring’s central button, we found the best results came with using the MIDI keyboard as normal, and using the ring as a subtle carving tool to dig further into each pad and triggered sound.
As you progress with using the ring, you’ll want to keep refining the responsiveness of your movements in Softwave. We heighten the sensitivity, so slight variations affect our sound, as opposed to wearing out the arms with big sweeping gestures!
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