If you’re interested in controllers meant to elevate the experience of composing or performing microtonal and polychromatic music, Lumatone is truly a next-generation instrument. While non-microtonal artists are most excited about Lumatone for the isomorphic experience, microtonal artists have been waiting for an instrument that could somehow manage to visually map all of the ‘notes in between the notes’ with this sort of elegance for a long time.

There are hundreds of potential mapping options when it comes to using Lumatone for this kind of musical expression. To expound properly on how microtonal / polychromatic music works in one article would be a daunting task. In the months ahead we hope to collaborate with some talented artists in this exciting field and demonstrate some of the possibilities Lumatone opens up.

There are some common approaches to mappings that are expansions on historically celebrated isomorphic layouts like the Bosanquet-Wilson layout. There are also extremely inspiring and inventive approaches, like those already shared by respected polychromatic musician Dolores Catherino. A great place to start would be to watch Dolores’ in-depth video exploring a prototype Lumatone, where she shares her experience of learning the instrument, and of creating her own mapping using the Universal Tuning Editor.

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We also encourage you to check out the back of the Lumatone manual for details on the ten mappings that ship preset on Lumatone, including several microtonal mappings. Our online mapping community is also set to launch, so keep an eye on our website for that.

Stay tuned for more and more community resources here on our own site and on our YouTube channel exploring the microtonal and polychromatic possibilities of Lumatone.