[sdiy] Pots vs Encoders, was Re: [sdiy] dave smith *instruments*

[Benjamin Budts]

>Funny, but I think
>it might take more technology to add expression to synths than the note
>generationg part uses.

What about weighted keys, modwheels, aftertouch and velocity(hard, soft, 
mid sometimes), CV pedals, portamento ? :-D .

cheers,
Ben

Mike Pepper wrote:
> I'm doing a broad strokes reply, so have not quoted.
>
> There is very much a horses for courses thing here, and also a sad
> reflection that the synth business is still making a fairly basic use of
> encodres and control surfaces in general.
>
> Outside our world, encoders are used very well in test equipment and
> communications gear. Often the encoder will have it's own dedicated micro
> attached. One of my 'scopes, and several communications receivers I have
> worked on/with implement 'ballistics' on the encoders, where faster turn
> rates speed up the update rate. In comms gear this helps simulate the
> flywheels fitted to  older mechanically tuned devices, and Cheater is right
> about muscle memory, though it applies here too - I've seen Air Force radio
> techs tuning very rapidly to a new frequency with a swift flick of the knob
> followed by a slower fine tune. They often seem to have the knack of landing
> the fast setting just below the needed frequency, (like 'aiming off' in
> orienteering), and then zeroing in with the knob in slow mode. Ballistics
> can be switches in and out, and in some cases, personally preset.
>
> Instruments like violins are not just muscle memory driven, though it is
> important. I was once. as a young lad, helping at a recording sesson, and
> couldn't understand why very nice female violinist didn't like the playback.
> She asked me to try and play her violin, to much amusement all round, but I
> quickly realised that she was getting a lot of her sound by bone conduction
> through the chinrest, and more tactile feedback via her string and bowing
> fingers. The thing felt alive! I later made more use of this knowledge when
> dealing with any insrtument where the player has such direct contact - most
> wind and stringed instuments do this to some extent.
>
> Synth type instruments, (and I include it's distant ancestor the pipe organ
> here), don't provide as much feedback. If you've ever played a direct action
> pipe organ, you'll know that the chord attck is much better than that of an
> electric action - the player can feel the servo effect of the wind snapping
> the pallets open, (a kind of 'stiff then loose' feel). Even a piano provides
> some tactile feedback. The speed advantage of plastic keyboards is
> wonderful, but seems to come at the cost of expression. 

> I've been working on a variant of the 'Pultec' equaliser, for mastering use.
> The post are replaced with resistor stacks that should provide 05,dB steps,
> and the capacitors are switched in parallel to give more turnover
> frequencies than the original, whilst keeping the standard fequencies. I
> started with rotary switches, but the wiring got nasty, and went instead to
> good quality reed relays.  I added a micro to control the relays, and
> hopefully, once I have a display format I like, I will have an old style
> Pultec, but with perfect snapshot and recall. Encoders are the only sensible
> choice here, and will track fast enough if some idiot wants to try doing
> special effects. Opticals, or encoders made from old stepper motors are
> probably the way I will go.
>
> For a performance resonance control, I can't see a better solution than a
> real pot or pot type controller, (wheel, joystick etc). By the way: I have
> changed out quite a few high grade conductive plastic ones in my time, they
> just take longer to wear out, but the contacts or the tracks will fail
> eventually. My personal take though, for performance, would be to have
> patchable performance controls, and route them where needed, some controls,
> are less likely to get repeatedly tweaked than others, but if you are
> playing music where you do a lot of that, is patch recall a big thing? Part
> of the interest, to me, of electronica is the interaction between the UI and
> the player. Personally, I actively dislike VSTs, unless I can have a control
> surface hooked in. I got lucky with a cheap batch of small cermet pots and
> have been thinking of a MIDIbox64 style unit, with plug-on panels, laid out
> for different intruments, and bankstick patch storage to go with them,
> taking me back to my days with analogue computers, another ancestor of the
> modular. On my Electronic Associates TR-48, (now in the Bletchley Park
> Computer Museum), the whole patch panel could be dismounted, (with a kind of
> 60's chic Thunderbirds style motorised thing), you still had to restet the
> grid of 10 turn pots by hand though.
>
> It's back to a personal choice, in the end: you can't get instantaneous
> recall with a pot, you can't fast tweak a cheap encoder. Our call.
>
> (sorry for the meandering post - it gets me this way sometimes)
>
> ||\/||ike
>
>
>
>
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