[sdiy] What do you like in a synth control surface?

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 23 Feb 2015, at 18:54, Neil Johnson <neil.johnson71 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ingo Debus wrote:
>> - knob/switch/etc position must reflect actual parameter value at all times (LED ring around endless encoder knob or motor-pot).
> 
> It seems the award-winning Modal Electronics 002 would disagree with
> you there, to the point where there are no scale markings at all!

I don't think he means that he wants scale marking telling him what the setting it (after all, most synths have a vague "0" to "10" without even any units) but rather that if the knob is at 12 o'clock, the sound you hear is the sound of the knob at 12 o'clock. It's the old programmable synths problem of "what do you do when you load a new patch?".

I don't think I'd agree with Ingo's hard-line "at all times" position, but there certainly needs to be a way to hear what you can see. The Korg Polysix has a very useful "manual" button on the panel, which gives you the patch which is currently set up on the panel. Ideal for programming. For playing, you can load a patch from memory, tweak if you want to, and it doesn't matter so much that the knobs don't all reflect the actual parameter values.