We are almost ready to ship all units out!

I was planning to make this update last week as a "Delivering" update on announcing we are preparing for delivery. We received the production samples last week and observed an issue with our units' touch bar. We are making new parts as replacements so this will set us back for ~ 2 weeks. However, we will still be able to deliver all of our orders within our promised time.

Production Sample：

Matrix Standard Color Change

Due to the limited number of orders, we will be reusing the Matrix Pro’s bottom cover & anti-slip pad for Matrix standard.

By design Matrix Standard will have a solid green bottom cover and anti-slip pads, while the Matrix Pro will have a translucent bottom cover and gray anti-slip pads.

For all current Matrix Standard orders, they will be shipped and will be equipped with translucent bottom covers and gray anti-slip pads.

Matrix User Manual

We are currently working on Matrix & Matrix OS user manual and it will be released soon. It covers all the basic usage of Matrix OS and its stock software. 

We will make this manual compilable from the source and hosted on GitHub, allowing user contribution and third-party usage.

Matrix OS Hacking Guide

We will also release Matrix OS development quick starter guide and API documentation post-launch. 

This will likely happen one or two months after delivering and after we sorted all the issues out. Before that happens, you are free to check out the MatrixOS API and stock applications and examples on your own on our repo. (We are changing a lot of low-level stuff for the OS 2.5 but existing applications provide good insights on how it works.)

Matrix OS 2.5 and beyond

We are shipping Matrix OS 2.5 into beta soon. This update mainly includes a customizable control panel and Matrix Standard & Matrix Founder Edition support. 

Now Matrix is in mass production and will start delivering soon, we are expecting more users will be engaging in contribution. 

Since it is not easy to sideload custom applications into Matrix OS at this moment, we will introduce a community lab tab for the application launcher, which includes experimental applications from us and the community, directly compiled into official firmware. 

We are also looking into enabling custom boot animations. We will launch a contest once in a while to let the community design a custom boot animation that will be included in the OS by default.

Midi Out module update

We received the prototype of the Midi out module a few weeks ago but the original design isn't very reliable so we are doing a V2, currently en route for testing.  The v2 will have a 3.5mm TRS jack (Type A) on one end and a USB C port on the other end.

Easter Egg: Project Node

Matrix is a very simple project in the grand scheme of things. The goal of Project Matrix is to create a highly customizable, flexible, affordable control surface for a variety of things.

In order to achieve those goals, Project Matrix needs to be made at a very large scale and appeal to the mass market and this affected how we shaped it and how we designed the manufacturing process.   

We want to set a foot back for some of our future projects and want to focus more on our creative freedoms. With that, we will be introducing some more random toys under "203 Lab" which will be kinds of stuff that we think is too risky / not cost-effective for mass production but very interesting. 

They will be less polished than commercial products, made in limited orders, and will be listed higher than mass-produced products as fun experiments.    

The first project we are making will be under 203 Lab will be Project Node - A tiny audio multitool handheld.

Project Node is packed to its absolute limit with TRS midi out, midi in, audio in & audio out, built-in mono speaker, build-in microphone, 1.54-inch IPS screen, wireless capability (Bluetooth, wifi, 2.4Ghz), gyro & accelerator, 750mAh battery, high-speed microSD card slot, and more.

This started as we are designing the wireless receiver for Matrix and ended up adding more random stuff in to see how far we can go and it will be a testbed for us to do some audio related development. 

This is still in the early phase of development to do a showcase or demo but we have a lot of ideas on what to do with it, here to name a few

• Matrix Wireless receiver
• Matrix wireless Midi IO
• Tiny portable synth
• Tiny DAW (Wireless controls to Matrix or midi TRS controlled)
• Tracker (Running LSDJ on it)
• Midi effect unit
• Sampler
• and probably a lot more

What do you think? Please let us know! We appreciate all your feedback!