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Software: Possible new feature, pitch interpolation?

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written by: john

Hi Mike

The strip controller we currently use is not capable of multi-touch. It's a technology we don't own (it's patented) so there's not a lot we can do to improve on it as it stands. There are currently quite interesting developments that we are watching with interest in capacitive multi touch, but integrating these into an Eigenharp cost effectively is quite a challenge. It's something we'd be keen to do in time though - I know that Phil (our Head of Electronics) is keeping an eye on this stuff with a view to the future.


John

written by: geert

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:16:04 +0000 GMT

Hi,

I've been looking at videos of the Haken Continuum and I like that you can seamlessly glide from one note into another without any interruption in pitch. I've been thinking about how to be able to do this on the Eigenharp and it seems to me that it shouldn't be that hard to allow an instrument to be configure to not jump between the pitches of the keys, but instead to interpolate the values in between and play the pitches as a continuous stream. This might give the similar possibilities as the Continuum for playing a continuous monophonic lead. Given the sensitivity of the Eigenharp's keys, I think this might be even possible in a polyphonic mode since it seems to me that you can detect in which directions fingers are sliding.

What do you think?

Geert


written by: catoro

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:22:49 +0000 GMT

Hi Geert:

I think that this will be cool... however the interaction paradigm in both instruments is tottaly different. I guess this behaviour could be simulated as you pointed using the strip, in fact in my latest video I tried to emulate that...however what I had in my mind was not the Haken Continuum but an Ondes Martinot kind of sound.
Any ideas around??

Cheers.

Carlos


written by: geert

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:30:32 +0000 GMT

I wouldn't want to use the strip controller for this since you would disconnect the pitch behavior from the keys themselves. It seems too intuitive to be able to slide from one pitch into the other, just by sliding over the keys themselves and have EigenD do the interpolation.


written by: catoro

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:29:46 +0000 GMT

@Geert... You've got a point in there... if someone creates a script for that I'll love to try it ...

Cheers

Carlos.


written by: john

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:53:20 +0000 GMT

We've looked at this quite a number of times over the last couple of years, and it's rather more difficult than you might imagine. It's easy to imagine a kind of glissando type effect, but only at the expense of removing some other performance sensitivity - it's very hard to intuit 'intent' on the part of a player and doing so is very much not in the spirit of what the Eigenharp is about - we're trying to give the articulation back to players, not take it away. The one nice way we have thought about is having a strip controller mode where a note can be picked up and moved along the keyboard without having a new note start. This is also more complicated than it seems (or we would already have implemented it) due to the variable geometry of the Keygroups. Not such an issue on the Pico right now (though it will become more so in the future) but a real one on the Alpha. We'll keep on thinking about this though - it would add another dimension to playing.

I do believe that there is a parameter in the Scaler that limits pitch change rate - this may well give you the effect you are looking for on a monophonic instrument. Won't work with MIDI though, or AU/VST's, as they don't have sufficient pitch resolution in pitchbend to make this nice. I'll ask Sam to look at this and post to let you know.

That said, when we put the fingering behaviour into the Scaler then this (being monophonic) is certainly a more accessible idea, in the same way that partially opening holes on a wind instrument can allow one to slide notes while retaining expressive control over the process. I have the feeling it might be a bit of a trick to get good at though.

Of course, you can always turn the key pitchbend range right up. An octave or so will get you where you want to be, although I can tell you that the experience of trying to play in tune at that range is quite something... I'll buy the first person that manages that trick a beer, it defeated me!

John


written by: geert

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:23:04 +0000 GMT

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer John. I've already tried the key pitch bend rate thing ... quite interesting :-)

However, with enough beers, what was out of tune before starts to sound really great ;-)


written by: mikemilton

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:09:16 +0000 GMT

Would it be possible (perhaps as some future enhancement) for the strip controller to behave as a surface in much the same way as the x-value of the continuum (including multiple touches?)? Perhaps augmented with some other controller for the y and z values?


written by: john

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:59:37 +0000 GMT

Hi Mike

The strip controller we currently use is not capable of multi-touch. It's a technology we don't own (it's patented) so there's not a lot we can do to improve on it as it stands. There are currently quite interesting developments that we are watching with interest in capacitive multi touch, but integrating these into an Eigenharp cost effectively is quite a challenge. It's something we'd be keen to do in time though - I know that Phil (our Head of Electronics) is keeping an eye on this stuff with a view to the future.


John



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