“I prefer to be physically disconnected from the computer, especially the screen, which means controllers are essential for my playing,” he says. “The potential to have a compact ‘touch sensitive’ controller was the last thing I felt I needed to control Ableton,” says supporter Chris Blarsky (aka deathstarchris) from Denver, Co.īased in Berkeley, Calif., KMI also attracted backers from as far as Istanbul, Turkey, including musician/sound designer Korhan Erel. It helped that tech blogs such as Create Digital Music-as well as early praise from synth pioneer Tom Oberheim and musician Vernon Reid-ignited buzz about the QuNeo. John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin came in, and Herbie Hancock came in with eight hours to go.” By the end date, the campaign brought in 678 backers and $165,914, blowing away KMI’s $15,000 goal. A third of the supporters came in during the last 48 hours. “But Kickstarter was fascinating, and it really did exemplify the viral capabilities of an Internet universe. “A lot times I’ll develop an instrument and wait until it’s finished to announce it, and that’s safer from a PR/timing perspective,” McMillen says. In 2012, he decided to launch KMI’s QuNeo 3D Multi-touch Pad Controller using crowd-funding. Keith McMillen, the founder of Keith McMillen Instruments (KMI), has built and marketed music gear for 30 years. In January, another technology company successfully funded its Kickstarter campaign, but this one wasn’t a startup. As of September 5, the company hadn’t announced a ship date for the Pebble watch, although their regular progress reports (featuring videos, photos, and FAQs) are somewhat reassuring for backers. But then came the hard part: manufacturing and shipping 85,000 watches. Like 75 percent of other technology- and design-related projects on Kickstarter (as reported by Bloomberg), Pebble Technology didn’t hit their target date and hasn’t yet delivered on their promises. One of the most talked-about Kickstarter campaigns is Pebble Technology’s programmable wristwatch, which raked in an unprecedented $10.3 million dollars in funding (the goal was $100,000). How well does Kickstarter really work in the context of bringing DJ controllers and other hardware to market? Today we take an in-depth look at the story of Keith McMillen’s QuNeo controller and the Kickstarter project that supported it.

These innovators, game designers and artists came up with ideas, set dollar goals for their campaigns, and watched as strangers scrambled to throw money at them.

In 2012, Kickstarter-the most popular crowd-funding site-turned a handful of little-known entrepreneurs into millionaires.

Wild dose kickstarter