Radio scan controller?

Chris (the Hex) the_hex at relay-1.ziplink.net
Thu Nov 5 03:36:29 CET 1998


Bear with me folks, this is probably going to sound a little wacked, but I'm
open to honest opinions/debate.  A friend of mine and I were discussing the
prospect of using MIDI to control radio frequency scanning -- that is, to
produce the sort of "scratch" sound effect you get by rapidly rotating the
FM radio dial from 88.1 to 107.9 and back again as if it were a DJ
turntable.  (If you have to ask why anyone would want to do that, just
remind yourself that I warned you I was wacked.)  Anyhoo...in a fit of
brainstorming, I came up with the following thoughts:

>Well...a standard radio tuner is controlled by a knob, which means it's 
>connected to a potentiometer (aka a "dial pot").  It should be possible to 
>simply hack around the circuit that connects to the tuner knob and replace 
>it with a CV (control voltage) jack.  After that's done...well, there are 
>lots of gadgets on the market already that convert MIDI streams to control 
>voltages (including the Paia Fatman).  There might need to be some voltage 
>scaling involved or something -- still a tad out of my league but shouldn't 
>be too difficult for anyone with a strong EE background.

Anyone care to comment?  More improbably, has anyone ever attempted anything
like this in a "musical" context?  I'm an amateur (as indicated above), so
go easy on me please.

Thanks,
Chris (the Hex)




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