Yaeltex V3 controllers add up to 16 color screens and double the encoders

Yaeltex has put full-color displays on its custom MIDI controllers. The Buenos Aires company’s new V3 platform takes up to 16 0.96-inch screens, placed anywhere on the unit, each showing realtime feedback, VU meters and dynamic labels. All of it is user-configurable, MusicTech reported.

Co-founder Mateo Ferley Yael says displays were “by far the most requested element since V2 came out”. “The hard part isn’t adding a display. It’s making it part of a flexible modular system that works for many purposes in professional environments,” he says.

V3 replaces the system Yaeltex has built on since 2020. The company rebuilt the mainboard, software and several physical modules from scratch. The new Kilomux mainboards double endless encoder capacity from 32 to 64, and analog capacity (pots, faders and joysticks) from 64 to 128. There are also upgraded main and auxiliary microcontrollers, dual USB-C ports for MIDI routing, and compatibility with V2 controllers.

The Kilowhat configuration software is now a standalone app for macOS and Windows. Each control can be set individually for message, channel, port, feedback and advanced settings, and settings can be edited in bulk and copied across banks. A model view shows the controller on screen, so configuring can start before the hardware is plugged in, or even before it ships. Touch a control on the hardware and the app jumps to it. Ableton Live control surface scripts can be developed inside the app.

Yaeltex began in Bariloche, Patagonia, as a project between brothers Alejo Yael and Mateo Ferley Yael, who built their first controller in 2009. The company was incorporated in 2016 and launched V1, a two-case modular framework, that year. Users of its controllers include Richie Hawtin, Arca, Fred again.., Thylacine, ANYMA and Tom Rowlands.

Kilowhat V3 does not yet support V2 devices. Yaeltex says that will follow in a later update.