[sdiy] user interfaces, was Radio Shack catalogs

[David G. Dixon]

> > Thinking of it, a mallet instrument (vibraphone, marimba) hardly
> > provides a "physical frame of reference", does it? Of course you get
> > into touch with the keys while playing, but once you have hit the
> > wrong one, it's too late. And there are many mallet virtuosos.
> 
> And where's the difference to e.g. a piano?
> 
> You hit the wrong key, you lose.

Response, Part II:

Concerning a modular synth, I doubt whether anyone could manipulate it with
his or her eyes closed, unless it was very limited.  What is more important,
I think, and what possibly qualifies as "virtuosity" on a modular, is to
have a deep and intuitive understanding of how the synth works so that one
knows instantly which cords to patch and which knobs to tweak in order to
obtain the sound one desires at any given moment.  In order for this to
happen, I firmly believe that one must first understand what every feature
on every module does, ideally on the level of the circuit itself, and also
to understand the fundamentals of acoustics.

This was another interesting aspect of reading Analog Days for me.  Very few
of the famous rock-and-rollers who used early synths (Keith Emerson, etc)
had much more than a vague notion of what the various knobs did.  As a
result, they never strayed very far from those "basic patches" they were
shown by those who sold them their units.  This, in part, is what gives
these players their distinctive sounds (again, art through limitation).
However, someone like Suzanne Ciani, who took the time to thoroughly learn
her Buchla (in part by helping to build it, but mostly by spending countless
hours experimenting with it, almost to the point of establishing a
pseudo-romantic cyber-relationship with it) was able to create new sounds at
will.  Perhaps that is one definition of "modular synth virtuosity".