The Shaper is a MIDI synthesiser controller which has strings instead of a keyboard.
The Shaper brings human expression to synth voices, creating spontaneous bends, slides, vibrato, glissando and portamento effects familiar to players of non-keyboard instruments such as the saxophone, slide guitar, trombone, fretless bass, violin, pedal-steel, clarinet, electric guitar etc…
Also, each string on the Shaper can have its own MIDI channel. Which means that each string on the Shaper can have it’s own, individual synth voice and, unlike a keyboard with a single, global pitch wheel, each string on the Shaper has its own, independent MIDI pitch bender.
But the Shaper doesn’t just shape the pitch of each string as you play. With the Shaper’s unique bend & sustain feature (if you bend the pitch of a note, you can take your hand off the string, and leave the note sustaining at the pitch to which you bent it), new possibilities in counterpoint, harmony and chord structure can be shaped, string by string, during live performance – in ways that are impossible on a keyboard or a guitar.
