Product Details

Measurements (mm):

200x150x40

VISCO LIVE takes the most popular features from the software and makes it possible to control them in a physical manner with knobs, faders and buttons. Thus, it is ideal for live performances!

The device only needs Power and an incoming MIDI Signal. 

Use the MIDI output to listen to your creations.

Key features

Track selection

The top part of the device is the track section. Here you can select one of 8 different tracks, all with different sounds on them. To make the process faster, you can also mute and play solo tracks by pressing „Mute“ or „Solo“ and simultaneously the track button.

Working with samples

Under the track selection are two displays. Each of them has a button above them to access the sample library. To scroll through these samples and presets, you can use the rotary knob in the middle between the displays. When you are happy with the selection, just press the knob down to confirm. Now you can use the big fader under the displays to mix the two selected samples. The device memorizes the fader position of each track, so if you switch to a different track, it will jump to the correct position by itself.

Global Macros

At the very bottom are five more rotary encoders. These control global effects. So, e.g., if you turn the timescale up, the tempo of all tracks will increase.

What's in the box

To save costs, we 3D - printed most parts of the product with matte black PLA.

Only the lettering and some important highlights are white.

Background Info

The product is made for people who want to take the Visco features out of their home setup and bring them to live performances. Since controlling digital knobs and faders can be very hard on a laptop, VISCO LIVE provides easy access and controllability via physical controls.

To find out what Visco users really need, we had to talk to them. We interviewed many people from all over the world and also did some deep dives in online forums such as Reddit or the Visco/Ableton Discord server. More details about that are in the next photo gallery.

After intensive research and interviews, it stood out that users who perform live would love to integrate Visco in their sets, but not having a way of physically controlling the effects and functions of the program makes it really hard for them.

Design Thinking process documentation

In the research phase, as well as in the development phase, we applied the HPI design thinking strategies. The following pictures give further insights in these.

Future Development

We are happy that we got all the important functions working to show them on the Werkschau. However, the overall look of the device is not as clean as we hoped. We had some trouble coloring the letters and would like to redo the top plate with printed letters and details on it. Also, while playing around with the product, we encountered some minor flaws that hinder the workflow. We have a list of things to improve for a v2. 

Also, we didn’t get the displays and rotary-encoder working in time. That and some quality of life improvements would be an awesome addition to this product.

Ideally, we would also want this synthesizer to be a standalone unit. Right now, it only works with a laptop

Reflection

The project was a leap into a completely new area for the three of us, but as we all come from different design degree courses, we were able to divide up the tasks according to our strengths. Above all, programming the displays and wiring so many elements was a first-time experience, at least in the context of the FH. Towards the end, we would have liked more time for prototyping and testing and kept the research part of the course a little shorter.