[sdiy] Control Interfaces (was Wakeman)

[Rainer Buchty]

> Well, I might be considered as rude again, but I'm really amazed (and
> somehow disapointed as well) to see you guys still fascinated by knobs,
> either real or "virtual" ones...
>
> Is there any chance to forget that kind of controls & displays for a
> moment and start brainstorming on some new / unusual ways of generating
> sounds & musical patterns ?

Whatever synthesis you go for, you'll finally come to a point how to enter
the data in a most user friendly way. Which brings you back to the knobs
being arranged in a (hopefully) most intuitive way.

Assuming, that you actually can map the synthesis parameter to terms which
the average musician understands (I actually doubt that e.g. more people
would have gotten into deeper understanding of FM if Yamaha delivered the
DX7 with the Jellinghaus programmer...)

When searching for a striking new synthesis this is IMO the point which
has to be kept in mind: how useable is it for the non-technical oriented
musician? Or will they be doomed to just recalling patches provided by
sound programmers? (Also, there are some "old" but non-standard syntheses
around which IIRC haven't been ever built into a real synthesizer. I'm
thinking of e.g. Karplus-Strong here or granular synthesis.)

The next question is: what would that new synthesis be good for, what
would it make distinct and prevent it from just falling under the category
"physical modelling"?

Rainer