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

[Dave Kendall]

On Feb 3, 2010, at 15:10, Benjamin Budts wrote:

>> 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

Breath controller, and ribbon controller?

I regularly use the first, and can't afford the last (yet!)  :-)

cheers,
dave




>
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Synth-diy mailing list
>> Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
>> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Synth-diy mailing list
> Synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> http://dropmix.xs4all.nl/mailman/listinfo/synth-diy
>