Sean McKee

Here's the video I promised a while back. Feel free to leave a comment on YouTube. Thanks to Clint for the snazzy thumbnail! A history, overview and tutorial of the very rare Hotz Box MIDI Translator hardware and software, invented by Jimmy Hotz. I decided to make this video because the only videos I found were of people playing the Hotz Box, but there was really no information out there on how it worked, and on forums it was very misunderstood. Hopefully this video will provide enough insights to educate people interested in this system and how it can be used. If you'd like to get a custom system built of any size, Jimmy can add polyphonic aftertouch and other features. For more information visit www.jimmyhotz.com.

BTW, here's a picture of my Hotz setup when I got the main unit. Since the smaller unit doesn't directly integrate and plug in to the larger one like the "wing" does, I've taken it out for now and put a synth in it's place until I figure out if it makes sense to have the smaller one in there. With each row on a different MIDI channel, it makes for an immense live performance system, or Vangelis-like improvisational system, but I use it to write, so don't necessarily need 9 different sounds available in real time...

Hi Folks, Sean McKee here. I've been working with Jon Anderson on various projects for a while now. Back in 2016, he let me take home his smaller standalone Hotz Box. I had been using it with the PC Hotz software running on a Mac through Crossover. I found it to be an inspiring system. For being 30+ years old, it still stands, in my opinion, as one of the greatest MIDI controllers out there. There are modern controllers by other manufacturers that employ intelligent scale/chord layouts, but most of them have rubber buttons that just don't feel right if you're trying to do some quick fiddly bits. I know some people call it cheating or say only unskilled people would use this, which I say is false. I'm an Emmy-nominated composer and multi-instrumentalist and was before I ever tried this thing, and have only gained a deeper understanding of theory and exotic scales and voicings as a result of using this. Just because a device can lay out only technically correct notes for a given scale (and let's not forget chromatics and passing tones), that doesn't mean you will automatically create "good" music. You still need talent for that. So it was mentioned on here that there was a full sized Hotz Box available in Israel. I now have that unit. Having spoke with Jimmy Hotz just today, he confirmed it was the first one he ever sold, and the original owner kept it in mint condition. Having digested about every piece of information and disinformation and videos I could find about these units, one thing struck me: There are a lot of videos out there of people just sliding their fingers along a row at light speed making blinding fast runs, not humanly possible on any other instrument. Some of the comments I've seen regarding this are along the lines of "that's not real music and if that's all you can do on this thing I'm not interested". Some of those videos have done a disservice to educate on the capabilities of the system. But the one thing I haven't seen is a video explaining how the hardware integrates with the software, and how it lays out different things on different rows, like chords on top, scale on next row and individual notes of the chord on the third row, so basically arpeggios laid out. So I plan to make a video just to show how the hardware and software integrate together for those who are curious and interested. To really get the most out of it, you have to get at least a basic understanding of the software, which I have, but it really can run very deep and very customizable. Now I don't do any of the "Hotz Coding", which is taking a song and programming it with the Hotz software to play back and automatically change keys and scales, etc. That's cool and all for jam karaoke, education and inspiration to beginners and kids, but I can't talk about any of those features or how to do it. I use it to create and explore exotic possibilities. Anyway, I'll post back here when I make the video. Hopefully it will demystify the system and clarify how it works, and show you the benefits. It really is an amazing system no matter what your skill level.