[sdiy] QTC and delurk

[Veronica Merryfield]

Hi all

I have been trying to post for a while and seem to have just cooked the 
right set of options to make it work, so, hi all from a DIY synther on 
Vancouver Island, BC, ex-brit. I've been lurking (enforced) for just over a 
year. I've been messing with DIY synths since I was about 14 in the early 
80's.

Thanks to Edward King for the QTC lead.

My current project (which I have been on the trail of since I was 17!) is to 
use a fretless bass instrument as an expression controller for a synth as 
well as being playable in it's own right. My plan has been to place 
something under a thin fingerboard veneer to work as a pressure sensor which 
would provide a position reference to use to generate a control voltage 
either directly or as a hint reference to a pitch detector. The sensor could 
also act as a pressure controller like after touch on a keyboard say. I 
would prefer a direct postion controller since even a position helped pitch 
detector will still take while (several milliseconds) to get a pitch. I am 
thinking that the position controller would have a calibration function to 
deal with different tunings, drift and such and could in theory run all the 
time to ensure the pitch control is always in tune with the strings. The 
controller would be digital and the synth would be analog (or hybrid) but 
with a digital UI and paramter/patch store.

I have been working in electronics (music got me into electronics) and 
mostly embedded software for some 20 years and have been a part time luthier 
during this period too building guitars, basses, mandolins etc both electric 
and acoustics, EUBs, electric violins and so on and am just getting into 
harp guitars. I am a fretless bass and EUB player predominantly but have 
always wanted to drive a synth from a fretless. Oh, and I play keyboards too 
:)

Veronica