Conductive Labs has initiated a Kickstarter campaign for The NDLR, a new MIDI device that they say fits between your controllers and synthesizers, playing notes and keeping your oscillators singing. Here's the story in their own words...

The NDLR is for anybody who loves making music but finds themselves staring at their keyboards not knowing what to play. It is a new MIDI device that defines a new place in your synth studio. It fits between your sequencer and keyboard controllers and your sound modules. It keeps your oscillators busy by playing sequences of notes over several MIDI channels so you can keep your fingers busy tweaking patches and twisting knobs!

The initial idea: multiple synthesizers playing notes and chord changes at the same time, without a computer in the way. The initial idea evolved into playing up to four parts: a drone note, bass line, pad notes, and a motif sequence, simultaneously.

The NDLR can play up to eight synthesizers via MIDI. It can send...

• a bass line to one synth.
• an arpeggiated sequence to your favorite lead synth.
• chord notes of a pad to up to four synthesizers by using interleaved poly-chaining.
• a drone note targeting those exotic evolving synths.
• a MIDI pass-through from your favorite external sequencer or keyboard controller and it will be automatically transposed from "C" into the current chord notes.

A ring of seven buttons enables playing any chord degree directly. When shifted, the same buttons allow you to pick chord types: triads, 7ths, 9ths, and suspensions, etc. The sonorities of these chords, major, minor, diminished... are automatically selected based on the chord degree and the key and mode chosen.

All the above mentioned technical details melt away while playing The NDLR. But we quickly realized while developing those features that keeping songs fresh with ever changing patterns and chord progressions is vital. The chord degree and chord type can also be selected externally by a sequencer. The notes played by the sequencer become the root notes of the chords that The NDLR plays.

The eight encoder knobs enable you to vary the sequences, rhythms, densities and range of notes. There are also three LFOs and two randomizers that can be assigned in the x8 modulation matrix to any of the parameters of The NDLR or to external MIDI CCs. This ensures that in addition to the motion of your synth patches there can also be an automated chord progression and modulation of The NDLR parameters.

We stuffed all this into one box that's easy to use and fun to play. It's an easy choice for anybody who loves making music and wants to tweak knobs on their otherwise silent synthesizers.

Pricing and Availability:
See Kickstarter page for pledge amounts.

More information:

• The NDLR

Conductive Labs Social

• Knobcon 23: NDLR 2 Updates 02-Nov-23
• NAMM 22: Conductive labs - MRCC Xpander 4X1 And Micro 88 04-Jun-22
• Fancy MIDI Patch System From Conductive Labs 15-Mar-21
• Knobcon 2019: Conductive Labs MRCC - MIDI Router Control Centre 13-Sep-19
• NDLR Modulation Matrix In Action 13-Dec-17