Foreword
Congratulations on your purchase of a Kenton Control Freak. Please take the time to read
this manual thoroughly as it explains everything you will need to know in order to get
the most from your unit.
Because of its ability to generate any type of MIDI message (including SysEx and NRPNs),
the Control Freak allows you to unlock the full potential of any device that conforms to
the MIDI standard. Of course, all this creative potential is great, but the depth and
complexity of the MIDI control available can seem rather intimidating at first. Don’t panic
– read this manual carefully, try some examples, and in a short time enjoy total control of
your MIDI equipment.
What is the Control Freak?
The Control Freak is a MIDI hardware controller which allows you to control any piece of MIDI
equipment, be it a synth, soft-synth, soundcard, sequencer or anything else with a MIDI In port.The
degree to which you can do this depends only on the amount of external MIDI control that
particular piece of equipment has been designed to allow.
What are the benefits of using a Control Freak?
Many pieces of MIDI gear have no front panel controls of their own, others possess on-board
controls which are frustrating and fiddly to operate. The Freak gives you the hands-on control you
need, to access the various parameters on such pieces of equipment, instantly and in real time.
The ability to tweak volumes, filters, envelopes and other popular effects with such ease can give a
new lease of life to your existing MIDI equipment. Why pay out for new synth modules when you
can unlock the full potential of the ones you already own?
The Control Freak is also an excellent time saving device. One of the most popular uses for the
unit is as a control surface for sequencers such as Cubase VST, Logic Audio and Cakewalk Pro-
Audio, where the “virtual” faders on the computer screen can be manipulated from the Freak’s real
life faders.This removes the need for tedious adjustments by mouse, and is a far more intuitive way
of working.
What is the principle of operation of the the Control Freak?
In most control strings used to control equipment be they SysEx messages, controller messages or
NRPNs, there is usually one byte which actually specifies the new value required.With SysEx
particularly, out of typically around 12 bytes, often only one or two bytes need to change to give
you the change in sound.The rest are there to specify the manufacturer, the synth model, the type
of message and which parameter you want to change.When setting up a slider or button to
control something, most of the bytes have fixed values, when it comes to the variable data bytes,
these can be set up to take their value from the slider.
CONTROL FREAK
INTRODUCTION
1
Control Freak
STUDIO EDITION
Control Freak
ORIGINAL
9-12v DC
Power in
Max 5v DC
IN 1 IN 2
MIDI
IN OUT THRU
9-12v DC
Power in
Max 5v DC
IN 1 IN 2
MIDI
IN OUT THRU
