Livid Instruments was founded by Jay Smith, Peter Nyboer, and Travis Redding. They started Livid to turn their interests in alternative interfaces and performance tools into usable real-life products. Livid is dedicated to creating quality and thoughtful products, and manufacture everything in their Austin, Texas facility. Like a custom guitar maker for digital performance, Livid's products are crafted from fine woods and quality metals, and completely designed, manufactured, and assembled in house. Livid has a growing line of hardware and software instruments, and offers OEM products and custom technology.
We take attention to detail very seriously in the creation of our products and only select the highest quality parts and materials for production. All the wood used in our instruments are hand picked and all components are custom designed for maximum performance and durability. With a set of open source hardware and software tools, we encourage other artists and the creative community to adapt our products to their specific needs. Livid's mission is to empower artists to create with a sense of inventiveness and experimentation.
2000
• While studying at The University of the Arts, Jay Smith designs his first controller in his parents basement. The result is the Editar, an expressive interface and software for editing and mixing video and audio samples in real-time.
• Livid released the original Ohm MIDI control surface. The Ohm is available through dealers in 13 countries
• Livid’s manufacturing shop in Austin is expanded to include automated PCB assembly, metal and wood CNC machines, and everything needed to assemble and finish products in house.
