[sdiy] modular synth controller

[Tim Parkhurst]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Glen [mailto:mclilith at charter.net]
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 9:04 AM
> To: Rude 66; Paul Maddox; Synth DIY
> Subject: Re: [sdiy] modular synth controller
> 
> At 10:15 AM 1/12/04 , Rude 66 wrote:
> 
> >the only other solution i can think of, would be installing a large touch
> >screen as a second monitor on your pc, and running the vst synth on it.
like
> >those touch screen ticket machines in public transport. the roland
v-synth
> >has a large screen that works surprisingly well. but we'd be talking 15
or
> >17 inch here.
> 
> 17" still isn't a large enough control surface for many of the VSTi
synths,
> at least not if you want a virtual "knob", "button", or whatever for each
> parameter of the synth. Some would need a surface area comparable to that
> of a large analog modular.
> 
> later,
> Glen Berry

Forgive the long post. If you think the whole 'virtual synth - touch screen
control surface' thing is garbage, you'll probably just want to skip the
rest of this message. :)

****
In almost any design, you reach a point where some compromise is necessary.
If you want a touch screen 'virtual panel' there would be some compromises
you'd have to make, but I would think they'd be well worth it. Grab one or
two of the new wide 17" displays starting to appear on notebooks, pop a
resistive touch screen interface on it, and I think this would be a pretty
awesome control surface.

Touch screen problems:
1) Cost. This a problem with most physical interfaces. Hardware is
expensive. However, I think that this approach could actually be cheaper in
the long run than building several different 'knob and dial' hardware
interfaces. And think of it; this could be a mixer, a synth, an FX box,
anything.

2) Lack of tactile feedback. Lots of different ways to skin this beast. The
biggest hurdle to overcome is people wanting it to look and feel EXACTLY
like a knob and dial panel. It doesn't have knobs, so you have to come up
with ways for people to interact with it that works and feels right. I was
thinking of representing each knob with a 'rotary surface'. This looks more
like a wide minimoog pitch bend wheel, but it keeps rotating (rather than
springing back). You put your finger on it and slide your finger back and
forth to 'rotate' the knob. It could be velocity sensing, so that a quick
slide would change that parameter fast, and a slow slide would give you fine
control. Some sort of visual feedback would be necessary too. You might also
include other feedback mechanisms like a soft beep, series of beeps, or even
'clicks' generated by a small thumper solenoid (like the click/tactile
feedback thumper on the Chroma). Another way might be a row and/or column of
rotary encoders along the top and right edges of the display (although this
starts to limit the flexibility of the display by tying you to certain
physical locations for your knobs). 

3) Limited size/difficult to expand existing units. Well, I suppose
something like this could be made modular. Just add another display and have
a way for the central processor to know that the available work area has
been expanded. A bit pricey, but it would be interesting. A simpler way
would be to have the display scroll when you reach the edge (perhaps a
specific gesture would perform a scroll so that you wouldn't accidentally
trigger it by reaching for a module at the edge of the screen). Again, I
know this gets back to the original limitations of most simulations where
you can't see the entire control surface at once but like I say, unless this
thing is going to 4' x 8' in size, you're going to have to make some
compromises. I would implement the scroll feature and also have a small
window in one corner that showed where the current display was in relation
to the entire 'synth.' Perhaps for something like a modular synth
recreation, a smart feature that kept related modules on the display would
be handy (If I'm tweaking my virtual VCO, then the display also brings up
the other modules I have that particular VCO patched to). 

Touch screen advantages:
1) Easily upgradeable and reconfigurable. This really would be cool AS LONG
AS you can come up with a user interface that makes sense and is easy to
use. Yes, you might have to come up with a different sort of 'knob' because
the sort of gesture you make with a physical knob just doesn't work quite as
well on a virtual panel. But if you can overcome having to 're-educate'
people, then it could open up a whole new world. Of course, people will
learn a new thing if you have a 'killer ap.' I mean, look at the original
Minimoog. For most musicians in 1970, tweaking knobs, using a pitch bend
wheel and learning about voltage control was very new and foreign thing; but
they did it because everyone wanted that sound! So I think we have the same
thing with the Large Virtual Panel (LVP, I just made that up, remember where
you heard it first); make it bigger, prettier, more impressive and more
useful that just twonking away on a laptop and I personally think it would
be extremely cool. It would be VERY expensive at first, but so were the
Fairlight and the Synclavier. Now you can do a lot of the same stuff for
under $3k. 

I think a 3D rendering of something like this may appear on my website soon.
User interface design is my absolute favorite part of any design, so I'll
have to see what I can come up with.

Your thoughts???


Tim Servo





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