Keith McMillen Instruments (www.keithmcmillen.com), creator of the controllers for human-to-machine music making, has announced new Drum Pad Emulation mode for the QuNeo, a 3D multi-touch pad controller. It can now approximate the feel and response of popular MPC-style drum pads such as the Maschine, Akai, and Korg, as well as others.
 
"All other drum pads have a mechanical switch that does a one-time detection of when the pad is hit, so the feel of the pad is largely determined by the type of switch and where it is located," says Keith McMillen, president and founder of KMI. "QuNeo continuously senses the varying pressure and location of the player’s gestures, so we can acquire the displacement, velocity and acceleration data of the hit to generate pretty much any response and feel."
 
QuNeo's Multi-touch, X-Y location and continuous pressure capabilities give it a unique advantage over traditional MPC-style drum pads, he adds. Each of the four corners of every pad can be programmed independently, enabling grid-style clip launching. Also, performers can trigger and hold a note, and then retrigger the same pad with another finger. Two rotary decks, nine VU sliders, and 17 pressure sensitive switches make QuNeo a complete controller solution. 251 responsive LEDs allow the performer to focus on his playing and not on the computer.

QuNeo ships with presets, templates and scripts for music software including: Ableton Live, Serato Scratch, Traktor, Apple Logic, Mixxx, Reason, Battery, BeatMaker for iPad, and Korg iMS-20 for iPad. QuNeo has a street price of US$199.00 USD, and is available now at music instrument retailers.