What's been going on in the land of Ellatron

OK, it's all been a bit quiet round here lately, so let's update you all on what's been going on.

First we have been cleaning out the codebase. It had got messy. It's now in much better shape and as a result is running faster and more smoothly than before, which is nice.

Secondly, we've been going universal. Our build system is now in shape and set up to get Ellatron and Ellatron HD merged into the same product. Now it's not clear how we can do this with Apple, we may just have to continue with the 2 separate SKUs and upload the same binary to them - but going forward, Ellatron for iPhone will be the same program as Ellatron HD. For those of you who purchased both we do apologize, but in the early days of iPad development without hardware it was just impossible and we had to get the iPad version out. But going forward, everything we do will be universal from day one.

So Mellotronics M3000 will go universal at the next refresh. This will open up the amazing semitone-sampled ABC-blended tones of M3000 to iPhone and iPod Touch owners. And of course the long-awaited Jordantron will also be universal when it is launched - one binary, all devices, it will be really cool.

And coolest of all - all these apps are going MIDI. We have early access to an advanced prototype of a quite fantastic low-cost MIDI interface for iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad. Latency is insanely low, quality is insanely good. Price - well, all we know is 'low-cost', this should get more clear over the next few weeks. We can't commit right now to when the device will ship - we hope during Q4 this year, so before the holidays - but it will be immense. As soon as we can tell you more about this new MIDI interface we will, but if the design pans out it will be the nicest one we have seen yet. Having 8 of the chord pads available on the programmable pads of our in-house Axiom 49 is *brilliant*!! And continuous controllers for M3000 ABC blend, pitch and volume - it is just so fantastic to have a MIDI keyboard plugged into an iPhone!

Once it's clear we are not breaking any NDAs we will post video ... stay tuned.

2,000 iPads from home

Sheer brilliance. Whoever you are pinstripedclips, you are a major dude.

iPad King Crimson!

Another totally brilliant M3000 performance I just found online - it is great to see our product being enjoyed and used by talented people - I have to say, I totally love this one!

Check out Tandog on MySpace ...

... who is using some warped Ellatron tones for movie soundtracks. Brilliant stuff!

Rocking the M3000 with Miss Vortex!

Her flying fingers make great use of the M3000 chord pads to apply some gorgeous beds under the beats here - this is actually my favourite fan video of M3000 to date, I really, REALLY enjoyed this one!