#43

So many things! But I’ll start with one and add more later.
The latest is the ipad and specifically a group of apps that have all come together for me since lockdown.
I was always fascinated with Borderlands and Samplr but really had no way on integrating them with the rest of my workflow. First I found out about AUM and how that can host other apps, functioning essentially as a mixer. Secondly, my Brother Mike Metlay schooled me to all things sync and introduced me to MIDI Link Sync to tie all my clocks together. Now I can sync my modular and recording computer to record to the timelime matching BPM and even recording tempo change automation. Lastly, I just started using Drambo on the ipad and that’s opened me up to creating all the custom sequencing, sampling and any effects chain I could want. Plus it’s so easy and portable to develop something on my tablet any time anywhere.

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#44

An 8 string guitar that sounds like your synths and doesn’t require callouses to play.

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#45

I find this is one of the biggest appeals in being an electronic musician using hardware and may be another reason why many artists truly feel compelled to acquire so many different instruments as you are encouraged to discover new expressions through how your body interfaces with them.

I think i first truly understood this on using my first proper music machine, a Moog Voyager OS where after having been a computer musician who loved programming software synths and getting weird sounds out of them, I discovered how this Moog’s real potential lay where it was making me play those weird sounds and shape them in a intuitive/reactive/communicative manner that was not known within myself when I was in that more sound design/programming minded space of using a keyboard and mouse to navigate a virtual interface on a computer display.

Getting into the material aspects of this yes…It was my first experience of the analog synthesizer. The physicality of a relatively humongous slab of wooden analog synthesizer. The balance and presentation of its parameters, large and smooth analog potentiometers where I could sense that truly infinite resolution and encouraged me to push just how subtle a movement I get out of a given sound. And finally how this all tied into the primary interface of the piano keyboard. Even though I am not a keyboard player I really felt like wow! So THIS is the legacy of the great instrument maker Bob Moog.

And so now more than 10 years later I really think about this a lot.

Ive since realised I love experiencing how the varying interfaces of musical devices influences and shapes musical directions and outcomes.

The excitement to engage with a new musical object and discover for myself the playful possibilities of a given musical interface. There must be a great satisfaction in achieving mastery over a given interface, something I have not known although there is no way to say that with certainty :wink: but it has been humbling when I witness a total noob who has no idea how to play something and just intuitively does it in a way that is totally their own, possibly resulting in a unique expressiveness that is come about purely due to the innocent sense of discovery involved in that early attempt.

If and how one is a able to recognise and retain that special innocent feeling and if a musical instrument can be designed(or has already been?) to give you this experience is another thing that excites me.

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#46

Hah I find the opposite true for me…or rather the dance towards the centre and around it which really delivers in terms of tension, expressiveness and also hints at the persona of the musician.

edit: I feel like i just understood what u were saying…marking the note centres rather than the transitions…yeh totally…on the upcoming syntonovo pan which is my most awaited synth…the designer talks about giving his xyz capable piano style keyboard a tunable dead zone to prevent from unintentionally going off centre

#47

Just noticed you’re also in Pittsburgh and it seems your post was mostly directed at physical devices. Altho you said you weren’t imposing any limits, I did present an ios example, but it does as The Dude said “really tie the room together”.

#48

@rstn , I second @zebra here w/ the Linnstrument. Considering your musical background it seems like a good fit.

If you’re interested in some good solo woodwind sounds, I would recommend looking into Audio Modeling’s SWAM lineup of virtual instruments. Controlling the SWAM plugins with the Linnstrument is a lot of fun.

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#49

iOS is totally relevant, thanks for sharing! I’m also a fan of AUM; it might be one of my favorite UI’s … When I first found the app it got me really excited about music / audio work on iOS.

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#50

Well said. I definitely feel the same about the aspect of exploration.

The question you pose is an interesting consideration! I think some instruments succeed in this way when they continue to surprise and reward those who invest the time to explore.

#51

This is a great point to bring up. On the Linnstrument, I’ve had the experience that these edges can interrupt slides and bends. I suppose this is not far off from the experience of playing any fretted instrument though …

#52

From perhaps a slightly different angle (probably not what you were looking for), I think the first cut was simply the deepest from me. My first synthesizer (a Yamaha TX81Z) and sampler (an Akai S2000) both had subpar user interfaces but also opened up worlds of sound I had only dreamt of at the time. I have an embarrassment of riches now, almost all of them far more immediate and flexible, but nothing since has surpassed in that feeling of endless possibility I got from those first spins at the sonic pottery wheel.

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#53

My background is classical and jazz piano, so the keyboard interface is the most natural for me. Over the years (decades) I’ve played dozens of acoustic pianos, Rhodes and Wurlis, some good, some bad, but a few just had magic in the way they mechanically translated my movements into sound. In the MIDI controller and keyboard synth realm, nothing ever gave me that special tactile/aural instrument-player feedback, until I found the Lachnit MIDI controller. It’s a hammer action (Fatar TP-40Wood) that has been modified by Friedrich Lachnit, a former Bosendorfer guy, to have a continuous light sensor system for velocity. The magic, though, is in its knob controllers for velocity-mapping the keyboard on the fly. As I play Pianoteq, or software synths or hardware synths or whatever, I can dial in the keyboard until whatever sound generator I’m playing suddenly feels like a real physical instrument that responds directly to me. Seems like a small thing, but when the mapping is just right, it changes the whole feel from manipulating a device to playing an instrument, at least for me.

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#54

That sounds extremely useful! Really growing in my appreciation of the haptic/ergonomic dimension of musical instruments as time goes on. Being able to dial it in very quickly and easy while performing sounds amazing.

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#55

True. Lots of keyboard controllers and sound modules enable you to map velocity response for the keyboard action, but most require menu-diving or manipulating a graphical interface and saving. The ability to dial it in as you play is an entirely different experience, like adjusting the attack on an acoustic instrument as you play. One advantage of this for live playing at gigs, for example with Pianoteq, is that I can dial up or down the brightness and loud/soft timbre for the particular room (or even for comping vs solo passages) as I play, just by adjusting the keyboard velocity mapping knobs.

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