Engadget – While programs like Ableton Live (and Sonar, Garage Band, etc.)have truly democratized electronic music making, most hardware interfaces can’t hold a candle style-wise to traditional instruments (or even the MIDI gear of the Awesome 80s).

Rather than merely bemoan this depressing fact, however, a musician from Zurich named Zander has built his own controller — and it’s truly a thing of beauty. Based on the uCApps.de MIDI hardware platform, this thing employs custom acrylic knobs, colored LEDs, and a whole bunch of buttons to bring his DAW controls into the real world — while kicking the ass of controllers like AKAI’s APC40 in the process. Beats and Things.