Somewhere between the Omnichord and the Stylophone sits the Le Strum — a superb MIDI device designed to replicate the melodic playability of a guitar, with the ease of single note chord playback. It’s pocket-sized, but full on features, and takes making music back into realms of pure joy.
Le Strum comes with 36 chord buttons, and a metallic strum plate to trigger individual notes by using the built-in stylus. An astonishing 84 different chords are available, including major, minor, dominant 7th, major 7th, minor 7th, augmented and diminished for 12 root notes. It is able to replicate a guitar string layout, simple triads, and an organ mode which can send your bass part over an alternative MIDI channel.
The Le Strum has been embraced by many professional musicians and producers as an exceptional alternative to the MIDI keyboard. Here we see Grammy-nominated producer James Wiltshire of the Freemasons and F9 Audio demoing it in his studio:
The Le Strum has been used by Michael Lovett of NZCA Lines, for his ambient soundtrack to this rather steamy video:
The Le Strum is available in kit form from SixtyFourPixels and as a fully finished product from midierror. Either way, you’ll have a great time making new melodies and a fresh angle on melody making using the Le Strum!
