touch plates

[c.j miller]

      helio,Q-BOT-
    I have only recently begun to entertain the no-
tion of making touch-plates;so I have only done a
small bit of research so far.Since it's fresh in my
mind..
    The first touch switches that I've had the opper
tunity to check out the schematics of are from PAIA'
s "programmable drum set".
    The whole magazine feature about it is zip'd on
Anders Sponton's dense site..
http://www.tellus.vallentuna.se/gymninfo/personal/
   anders/sundries.html
    John Simonton speculates about some of it's un-
realized possibilities..
http://www.paia.com./touchsw.htm
    I will play with these concepts in a few weeks,
as my schedule is flaky and I prioritize some pro-
jects first.The concepts seem simple.I guess that
you vary capacitance by touching the plate,measure
that difference and condition it into a trigger..
at least for a switch.I don't know what I'm doing,
but I would speculate that this could be an applica-
tion of one of those "trigger a one-shot" processes
that I here so much about.
    Today I found a book that describes circuits 
which could be effective if you want a controller
that is of more contiuous quality."how to build a
lie detector,brain wave monitor & other secret para-
psychological electronics projects (your passport to
 the world of the paranormal using eveyday electron-
ics)"-Mike & Ruth Wolverton,TAB,1981.The table of
contents are a riot!I won't list all of the hilarity
 here,but do check this out if you get the chance.
Not the most precise-sounding instruments,but much
of the material could be adequate in controllers for
 musical expression.
    Have fun-        CJ


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