Monome Sixty-Four
Made by Brian Crabtree and also originally manufactured in Philadelphia – the Monome is controller that lets you use open source software to make it do basically anything you want. The most popular function is using it as a sampler, made famous by Daedelus out in LA. Brian Crabtree is amazing with this thing, as is Galapagoose from Australia, who wrote the customized software for Daedelus to use. The Monome is beautiful to hold with a wood casing and it even has a tilt sensor built in which some folks use to control effects. Great to travel with if you only have room for one piece and doubles as a controller for visuals. Comes in 3 sizes according to the amount of buttons: two fifty six (16×16), one twenty eight (16×8), and the one I have, sixty four (8×8).
monome.org/devices
– Rucyl Mills