GRIDI is the world’s biggest MIDI Sequencer: Watch

GRIDI is the world’s biggest MIDI Sequencer: Watch   

GRIDI is the world’s largest MIDI sequencer which is a bit bizarre considering everything else in the music tech world is getting smaller and smaller and aimed at compact mobility.

Nonetheless GRIDI was built by Yuvi Gerstein because he “wanted to create a method for people who are mainly non musicians to compose music in an intuitive physical way.”

Inspired by a large scale spots painting by British artist Damien Hurst which is exhibited at the Israeli museum, Gervstein decided an equally massive MIDI sequencer would be a cool idea and hence GRIDI was born.

What is GRIDI?

GRIDI is a large scale midi sequencer (total size 2.68 X 1.64 meters), which emulates the way modern musicians make music using midi in their DAWs (digital audio workstation).  

The midi sequencer is made out of four cut-out wooden plates, carefully cut by a CNC machine. Inside the plates there are a total of 256 holes, which represent a 16X16 grid. Inside each hole there is a LED light and a button.

The project works using a couple of Arduino micro controllers, going into a Macbook Pro running Arduino software and Ableton live 9, with a custom max for live patch to receive the input from the grid and control the LEDs. There is also an iPad running (the awesome) touchable 3 app, used to change the sounds of the drum kits, instruments and add effects as well. I will be controlling touchable while visitors compose the music using GRIDI. In the future, I will probably add some features, a midi controller for people to control certain elements of the music, add effects on their own and more.

Watch Yuvi, the creator of GRIDI, perform Billie Jean by Michael Jackson on GRIDI