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What this is and what's exciting about it is that it's a new human-computer-inteface designed solely for producing synthesized music. Think about what we had b

What this is and what's exciting about it is that it's a new human-computer-inteface designed solely for producing synthesized music. Think about what we had before: Midi keyboards, Midi guitars, keyboards and mice, a few more interesting control surfaces and not much else. Sure the keyboards and guitars would be good for producing keyboard and guitar sounds, but what we needed was a way to control the gamut of sounds that can be produced by a computer in a unified way. This could well be it... Agreed, their demo was poor, but Les Paul was no Jimi Hendrix either. I would be interested to see what sort of software comes with it and how reprogrammable it is.

parenthesis 17y ago
Yes, it isn't an `instrument', it's a human-computer-interface for musical purposes, as you say. One of the great advantages of computer music is the complete decoupling of sound generation from any particular human means of controlling it. Unfortunately, because they can be manufactured so cheaply, keyboards (in the piano or organ sense) dominate as a real-time control device. (A lot of them don't even have channel aftertouch, never mind polyphonic aftertouch!) Not that there has been a shortage of activity in this area: there's a conference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Interfaces_for_Musical_Expression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Interfaces_for_Musical_Expr... and many niche companies making niche products, but nothing has ever really taken off.
chancho 17y ago
I think it's just an optimized combination of pre-existing control methods. Keys with aftertouch, breath control and some touch surfaces. Evolutionary, not revolutionary. what we needed was a way to control the gamut of sounds that can be produced by a computer in a unified way That's a bit like asking for a way to control the gamut of images that can be produced on a canvas in a unified way. There are 1445068800 possible 1-second-long CD quality recordings. Most sound like white noise. I think what they're going for is not to span the whole range of sounds, but the whole range of familiar music, plus-or-minus a little.
- panic 17y ago
  Assuming a sampling rate of 44100 samples per second, and 16-bit PCM, there are actually (2^16)^44100 possible 1-second-long, CD-quality recordings (which is way, way more than 1445068800).

parenthesis 17y ago

Yes, it isn't an `instrument', it's a human-computer-interface for musical purposes, as you say. One of the great advantages of computer music is the complete decoupling of sound generation from any particular human means of controlling it. Unfortunately, because they can be manufactured so cheaply, keyboards (in the piano or organ sense) dominate as a real-time control device. (A lot of them don't even have channel aftertouch, never mind polyphonic aftertouch!) Not that there has been a shortage of activity in this area: there's a conference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Interfaces_for_Musical_Expression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Interfaces_for_Musical_Expr... and many niche companies making niche products, but nothing has ever really taken off.

chancho 17y ago

I think it's just an optimized combination of pre-existing control methods. Keys with aftertouch, breath control and some touch surfaces. Evolutionary, not revolutionary. what we needed was a way to control the gamut of sounds that can be produced by a computer in a unified way That's a bit like asking for a way to control the gamut of images that can be produced on a canvas in a unified way. There are 1445068800 possible 1-second-long CD quality recordings. Most sound like white noise. I think what they're going for is not to span the whole range of sounds, but the whole range of familiar music, plus-or-minus a little.

panic 17y ago
Assuming a sampling rate of 44100 samples per second, and 16-bit PCM, there are actually (2^16)^44100 possible 1-second-long, CD-quality recordings (which is way, way more than 1445068800).