Thursday, September 18, 2008

Aurora mixer recently both available and unavailable

This post is proud to have been syndicated to the Ponoko blog.



Aurora mixer esploded diagram


I'm a bit slow off the mark with this one - Make reported last week that the Aurora mixer (posted on Ponoko previously here) is now being distributed, and before I knew it the first batch had already been snapped up. The first batch was of 3 fully built mixers though, so its scarcity is unsurprising given the kind of enthusiasm there seems to be for this product. One of the first batch went out to Peter over at http://www.createdigitalmusic.com who wrote this thorough discussion on the item.


On its open architecture Peter writes this:


"... it’s a really remarkable piece of hardware, and one you can get right now and immediately open up and reprogram / repair / rework if you wish. The real test will be to see how people respond to its open-source design, whether that translates into people using it creating some of their own solutions to housing, customization, and software operation in the way they have with some other open projects.


"In other words, Aurora isn’t perfect — but that’s actually kind of terrific, because it’s something more important: open. ..."


"... Bottom line: it can’t be understated that this not only a unique controller, it’s a controller you’d have no problems taking apart physically or in terms of software to change something. And that’s a very exciting thing, indeed."


Looks really positive for this well conceived product. The makers are currently accepting group orders only.

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