GRIDI is a large scale physical midi sequencer for music composition and collaboration. It is a tangible MIDI sequencer with embedded LEDs. It is considered to be the world's largest MIDI sequencer by some musical technologists. It was created and developed by Yuvi Gerstein in 2015.
History
Music producer, guitarist and entrepreneur Yuvi Gerstein created GRIDI in 2015. It was first built as an arts project for a one night event at the Israel Museum called “contact point”, curated by Renana Raz. Along with its creator, there was a team of engineers, Ronen Peri, Michael Zeron and Nadav Vainer. The concept was partly inspired by Damien Hirst’s Spot paintings, one of which is located at the Israel museum, where it was first exhibited. It was exhibited in Israel, Germany, Italy, Spain and Singapore. One unit is exhibited at Israel National Museum of Science, Technology, and Space in Haifa.
Technical specification
The first version was made out of four CNC-cut wooden plates, painted white and mounted to a metal structure. Its size is 2.80x1.65 meters and it consists of a 16x16 grid. Each divot has a switch and an LED inside it. The system is connected via one Arduino mega, going into a laptop running Ableton Live and a custom patch made in Max MSP. All of the wiring was handmade, except the LEDs which were prewired. The second version was developed as a commercial product and is slightly larger than the fir st 300x184x12cm. It is made out of four CNC cut plastic plates mounted to a metal structure. It has the same 16x16 grid of divots, but underneath there are custom made electronics, which hold the LED and switches in place. The use of transparent balls as inputs allows them to receive the LED light which fills the balls and creates a visual effect. The system is run by four Arduino Uno units and does not require an external computer to run. A control panel is situated on board one of the plates and has the ability to change the sound kits and the operation of the table.
