[sdiy] Timbreon and firmware synth

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Fellow Mutants.
         Two things I've been searching for with no luck this morning and I 
thought I'd throw them out here just in case anyone here knows what I 
SHOULD be searching for.

Firstly. A very rare experimental instrument from the early~mid 70s called 
a Timbreon. At least that's how I think it should be spelt. I have tried 
other iterations. Should be pronounced "Tamb-er-on" but at the time was 
pronounced more phonetically as "Timber-on" It appeared in an early 70s 
documentary called. "The new sound of music" which may or may not have been 
an Australian produced docco. But has long since vanished along with 
hundreds of episodes of Dr. Who and almost all trace of the Aunty Jack 
Show. Erased by the intelligentsia that ruled in despot-like fashion over 
the ABC here at the time. But back to the instrument.

I don't know what technology was underneath this thing in terms of a 
controller. It was referred to as an instrument in it's own right at the 
time but they all said that. It was some kind of analog synth with 
possibly, one of the coolest alternate controllers. Given that synths were 
generally monophonic at the time and this was designed for the job. 
Actually it was, I guess, duo-phonic.

It resembled what I guess you'd describe as a long loaf of bread. About as 
long as a 76 note keyboard. It's upper surface appeared to be made of some 
relatively soft or semi-padded material. It probably had some kind of slide 
ribbon arrangement inside of it but there was more to it than that.

It was played karate-chop style with the sides of the hands. Left to right 
was pitch as you'd expect. It had a velocity kind of sensing so that the 
harder you hit it, the louder it was. But depending on where you hit it, 
front to back, gave you another control element (Probably filter). You 
could also do things like hit a note and slide in pitch or timbre by 
repositioning your hand. The demonstrator played it with two hands so some 
how it must have been able to tell the difference. I have no idea how it 
could have discerned all that with 1970s analog/slide-ribbon type 
technology.  For all I know they could have used pneumatic tubes.

As a kid, I vowed to build one of these things and for some reason I 
remembered how cool it was this morning. I thought someone may have 
archived some information about it somewhere but it seems not. But maybe 
I'm just searching for the wrong thing. Maybe everyone's forgotten about 
the Timbreon and it has been re-invented with some newer technology? I 
don't know. But if anyone has any thoughts on this I'd be most interested.

---------
The other clue that occurred to me this morning. Not actually a new clue 
but I'd thought this for a long time and is a question for all you Code 
Monkeys and Bit Bolters out there.

Has anyone done, or even tried to build a synth at firmware level using old 
computer hardware. In theory, even an old 486 board should lend it self to 
this task. Running directly from ROM with no bloated OS and minimal 
hardware support, something like this should fly.

As you probably know, I wouldn't make the grade as a code jocky's 
skid-marked underwear but I know that even a 486 is a formidable beast when 
it's not bloated down with M$ crap. If an AVR can render a basic synth, 
surely a 486 with a crappy ol' ISA sound card could do something 
extraordinary. And of course there's plenty of old pentium 1's out there 
that could probably be put to similar use.

Once again I'm not sure what to search for. In that so far, all I come up 
with is a bunch of VST and DX plug-ins. Or the occasional waffle about how 
good, bad, and/or ugly soft synths are.

If anyone might have any thoughts on this or run across something I'd be 
more than curious to check it out.

Thanks in advance.

Be absolutely Icebox.

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