An update to the classic 1988 MPC drum machine sampler, reflecting the present day movement towards enabling live electronic music performance by way of finger drumming and controllerism, today’s standalone Akai MPC Live is a Lithion battery powered affair specifically meant for stages , DJ booths and plane journeys

 

 

 

Finger drums on steroids: the Novation Launchpad brought a 64 button grid into popular usage

 

Some of my improvisations on the Ableton Push

 

 

Tessa Lizz performing some finger drumming wizardry on a Native Instruments Maschine

 

Jeremy Ellis playlists of finger drum rudimentary tutorials

 

 

Shared by an ever-growing list of new instruments the standard note layout of the Push, the Launchpad, the Lightpad, the Linnstrument, and many others, is the same as string instruments, “5V:1H”, five semitones vertically, 1 semitone horizontally, which is an isomorphic, and transpositionally invariant layout aiding in the learning of music

Highlighting a G major scale (with natural 4th), going up in broken major and minor thirds diagonally

 

A C major chord voicing

 

A c minor chord voicing

An F dominant chord voicing

 

The Linnstrument

 

The ROLI Lightpad Block

 

The Lightpad being played quite brilliantly