AW: AW: Keyboard/Midi Frontend (RE: PolyModular Standards)

[Ingo Debus]

Haible Juergen wrote:
> Sometimes you'd want to do different things with the sustain switch, like
> increasing release time of envelopes instead of holding all notes forever.
> (The OB-8 has this feature, setting two separate Release times for
> sustain on and off. It is so useful that Kawai has even used this as the
> *only* option as how sustain works on the string sounds of their
> home pianos ...)

Cool! This is also possible on my system (since any MIDI contoller can
control any analog parameter), but it never came to my mind to try it.
All I would need is a sustain disable parameter. 


> BTW, there is one truely brilliant feature in some Ensoniq keyboards:
> You can switch the Pitchbend to only work on notes that are still
> held on the keyboard (and not sustained by the sustain footswitch).
> That way you can bend single notes on a chord like guitarists are
> used to do ...

So we need individual fine tune/pitch bend outputs for every voice (or
high resolution DAC). Could be used for autotune too. Another missing
feature...

> One could implement it in the analogue domain easily, given
> that the Midi interface puts out a separate Sustain signal instead of
> just prolonging all Gates.

Hmmmm, if the interface just outputs the normal gate (not affected by
sustain) and a separate sustain signal, there would be some discrete
logic needed (per voice) to handle sustain properly. It's late now and I
don't like thinking about it too much, but it doesn't seem to be trivial
to me. At least the programming of sustain handling wasn't (did that
recently).
Ok, we wouldn't need separate fine tune outputs, but we do need fine
tune on/off switches for each voice instead then.

>         >synthesizer UI seems not to be invented yet, here we have only few
>         >parameters that require direct access: number of voices stacked,
>         >keyboard scanning modes and keyboard split point. Did I miss
> anything?
> 
> Unisono on /off,

Unison means: monophonic, but all voices stacked? I have two parameters
for this, mono/poly (keyboard scanning mode) and number of voices
stacked.

> A little more than that. You also want to remove the disabled voices from
> the assignment algorithm. It should even be implemented to work as
> a "Drone Mode", i.e. if you disable a voice for which the key is still held
> on the keyboard, the gate should be (optionally) kept high, and the last
> pitch should be kept assigned to that voice. So you can sustain individual
> notes independently, and also release them independently.

But then you need to know which voice plays which note...

> Good for creating complex drone textures (I love them !)

"Organ is wonderful easy to play. You press two keys and put a match
between them and it makes music all night long" (Carla Bley) ;-)

Ingo