One of the things I have always had a soft spot for live performances using midi controllers, and have spent a good couple of weeks during quite a slow summer drooling over a monome and checking out some people with some amazing virtuosic MPC playing. So, I did go a bit weak-at-the-knees when I saw the post on createdigitalmusic.com of a rather fantastic looking festival where electronic musicians get together and battle it out with midi controllers. It is hosted in San Francisco (like I needed more reason to move there) and has been won in a previous year by Daedelus, of whom I have been a pretty big fan for some time, and who's described as being a "monome legend" on the blog.
The video converge of this year's festival was good but and the winner, Edison, seemed pretty impressive; although it seemed like the prime-time slot in the post on createdigitalmusic.com was occupied by the musician who won the tied third place position, who, in my opinion, had the best performance.
It definitely looks like a great idea for a competition and I hope it grows in future years, and maybe to the point where it gets some big corporate sponsors and then could offer some huge prizes to the winner.
