OMG! watch this instrument in action

[beej]

It's an interesting concept. Personally, I would kill for direct tactile control of pitch (vibrato) from sideways pressure on a conventional keyboard - vibrato really needs to be under the finger playing the note.

You can attempt to fake it by having two separate controllers doing rate and depth but it will never be the same, and aftertouch really isn't the right mechanism, although again, it can be useable under some circumstances. But a real keyboard with left & right pressure sensors would be the best, providing it's a workable concept.

I seem to remember one manufacturer (70's or early 80's) did indeed make a synth/keyboard with this feature, but it didn't work too well and the instrument wasn't a commercial success - I forget the details now, anyway.

The Continuum does this well from what I've seen, but of course it's a rather different instrument from a conventional keyboard.

[Scot Solida]

I seem to remember one manufacturer (70's or early 80's) did indeed make a synth/keyboard with this feature, but it didn't work too well and the instrument wasn't a commercial success - I forget the details now, anyway.

That big Yamaha...GX1? Didn't that have keys that wiggled along the horizontal axis?

[bermudagold]

I'm with spuddle.....i think it has the possibility to unleash a lot more expression than most controllers....its like having a pitch and mod wheel for each finger which is clearly more than what I've personally seen from a keyboard type controller....because there is no key movement, it would obviously take a while to get the pressure feel for on/off note....the black keys are marked so there is a chance you could learn to play it traditionally.....but even if you had to throw out your classical piano training,...you could just look at it like learning a new instrument...before keyboard controlled vsti,...thats what people did after all and there is and was something to be said musically for having a unique intimacy with each different instrument you played.....especially with all these physical modeling synths....yeah they allow for more expression than sample based synths for acoustic or old world instruments, ...but most of that extra expressivity goes to waste playing them on a keyboard because the original subleties of nuance of the original interface are lost....i think this deveice would go along way in improving that.....cause right now personally for most of the ones i've tested, i'd rather give up the extra expressivity potential of physical modeling of acoustic instruments for the more relaistic sound and dramatically lower cpu hit of sample based synths....development of more expressive controllers like possibly this thing could possibly change some minds and help physical modeling acceptance....but thats a different debate.....i dont understand the disdain for this thing.....i'm with andrew simon, if it were $399....i'd definitely demo it, and if what its cracked up to be ...buy it

[spuddle]

Several nice posts there people. You made some especially good points Scot. Since as it stands currently, if there is only one guy making them, what happens in the future when the thing breaks down and maybe there is noone making them any more.

It's a trade-off I suppose but these things seem well built and so should last a while.

Another point on the pricing is that these are going to maintain their value pretty well, they will not depreciate or become throw away technology in the same way as a Receptor might (sorry guys, nice product but technology moves way too fast) for example..

As long as MIDI is around, the controller will be useful. Not only that but it will probably still be useable with the ethernet port for any future products that see to implement compatibility similar to Kyma.

I'd personally see it as a good investment.

Of course the best thing in the world that can happen to a product like this is to be accepted and adapted for a larger market. Will this ever happen? We shall see..

[shamann]

Trouble is, what happens if I spend years practicing the thing and then it disappears from production? Will the one I buy last forever? Master a keyboard or a guitar, and you'll have plenty to choose from in the future if yours breaks. Can the same be said for this? I plan to still be making music in 20 years...

That's a really good point, Scot. The design won't ever become a standard, so your investment into learning a new instrument may well be for nowt. Given the state of intellectual property laws, I wonder if we'll ever see widespread adoption of new instrument types again? Or if everything is resigned to novelty status or building on what already exists?

One thing I find funny, of the three videos I've seen of people playing this thing, they've almost exclusively played with one finger (with the occasional widdly widdly multi-finger flourish, à la Rudess). So all this "vibrato and modulation for every finger" stuff, yet its use as featured by the maufacturer is all stuff that could be done with simpler/cheaper controllers.

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

One thing I find funny, of the three videos I've seen of people playing this thing, they've almost exclusively played with one finger (with the occasional widdly widdly multi-finger flourish, à la Rudess). So all this "vibrato and modulation for every finger" stuff, yet its use as featured by the maufacturer is all stuff that could be done with simpler/cheaper controllers.

Well that's because there's a rather large restriction in the way our hands work. Go to your keyboard for a moment and finger a chord that uses all four fingers (The thumb is a digit ).

So you should have your index finger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky finger all resting on a key, but not pressing the keys down. Now try to wiggle your ring finger back and forth in a smooth motion without wiggling any of your other fingers. Keep in mind, if the motion is jerky then it's going to sound like crap, and if it causes another finger to move then that note will go out of key.

Okay, that didn't work out too well, now did it? Now , with your fingers in the same position try to move your ring finger up and down while moving your index finger back and forth. You can't do it. The human brain doesn't have that kind of control over the body. Lots of things are all controled by the same groups of muscles, and our fingers are a good example of this.

If you wiggle one finger then you're going to wiggle the others, and you can't make two different fingers do two different things while maintaining the smoothness of motion required for musicality.

Furthermore, the comparison to vibrato on a guitar is rather pointless. That vibrato isn't controled by wiggling the finger, it's controled by wiggling the wrist. Wiggling your wrist while playing the keyboard is going to produce a completely different effect then while playing guitar.

[bermudagold]

LMAO.....good ass point lawnmower....like i said it would be akin to learning a new instrument for the first time....would definitely take a major investment to get comfortable with it

[Markleford]

One counter-point here:

Nobody said that only one person can play the Continuum at a time.

Besides, trying to map tactile gestures from one interface to another is backwards thinking: new instruments should be treated like new instruments! (the guitar synth suffered the same thing for a long time)

For instance, not only can you control a note in three dimensions with the Continuum, but you can also split the playing surface into different zones for different purposes. You could make one hand play in a square that acts like an XYZ pad to further modify controllers on your noting hand. But wait, there's more! You can use this zone with *two* fingers on the same hand to express even more dimensions simultaneously: delta of X, Y, or Z, vector between any combination of these, and rotational/angular factors.

Sure the fingers of the human hand can't do everything one might imagine, but they can do surprising things that perhaps don't have obvious applications on current keyboard controllers. Part of the fun is that discovery.

- m

[rockstar_not]

Some keyboards have polyphonic aftertouch. That's the same as having a modwheel on every key and it won't set you back $5,300 either.

Yeah, like my 1989 vintage EnsoniQ VFX-SD, that I still use as my controller keyboard. This thing is a tank.

I just wish someone could code a VSTi that responded nicely to it, for feedback stuff like the rudess demo. The internal sounds are too old to be considered modern and too new to be considered 'vintage'.

-Scott

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

You could make one hand play in a square that acts like an XYZ pad to further modify controllers

Yeah, but you could get the same effect out of a touch sensitive LCD screen for a few hundred dollars. I continue to not see why I should even want this keyboard, much less why it's worth a quarter of what I make in a year.

As for being "American made" I really don't care. It's no small secret that guitars built in Korea have higher quality control standards than ones produced in the US. Simply put, I'd rather have an Epiphone than a Gibson that was slapped together because some guy wanted to get it done so he could take a cigarrette break.

Being made in America is hardly an excuse to raise the price. American labor is more expensive, but not THAT much more expensive. This thing would be interesting at $800, cool at $600, and a must buy at $300. At $5,300 it's lunacy.

I could get a hand made guitar from some of the most respected craftsmen in the world with every feature I could ever want for about half that price. I fail to see why a big XY pad costs so much more to build than a quality hand made guitar (made in the US as well, by the way).

[Markleford]

Yeah, but you could get the same effect out of a touch sensitive LCD screen for a few hundred dollars.

Those are only XY and track only one point. Unless I'm wrong, that is, and if I *am* please tell me where I can get such a multi-tracking XYZ beast for that cheap!

I continue to not see why I should even want this keyboard, much less why it's worth a quarter of what I make in a year.

And I continue to *not* see me trying to convince you to buy one. I must have missed it if I did. Anyone else see me put on the salesman hat? I make no claims that it's right for everyone. Never have.

I'm just explaining that as a gestural controller people are giving it a short shrift due to not knowing what the complete capabilities of the Continuum are, or simply because they're satisfied with what they have. But that doesn't mean this device is not by point of fact more capable of tracking simultaenous expressive inputs than the average keyboard.

You made some claims of what human hands could not do, and I mentioned some other things that they could do instead. Don't worry about it.

Besides, you could also use your penis.

As for being "American made" I really don't care.

Nor do I. Did you just imagine that I said something about that, or did you pull it from another post by someone else that I missed?

This thing would be interesting at $800, cool at $600, and a must buy at $300. At $5,300 it's lunacy.

Total agreement there. I'll be hard pressed to pay that much for my next used car, let alone another instrument out of many that I haven't mastered yet!

But someone else could totally justify it. I bought my used sax for $450 and am happy with it, others need a $5000+ model to float their boat. But I'm not the kind of person to say it's wrong for them to make that choice, and I won't argue that mine is of better quality. (though there *has* to be a point of diminishing returns...)

- m

[spuddle]

One thing I find funny, of the three videos I've seen of people playing this thing, they've almost exclusively played with one finger (with the occasional widdly widdly multi-finger flourish, à la Rudess). So all this "vibrato and modulation for every finger" stuff, yet its use as featured by the maufacturer is all stuff that could be done with simpler/cheaper controllers.

Check back earlier in the thread to see the links to Sonic State videos showing more what the Fingerboard is like to play with all digits. Also bare in mind that this thing is only several years old meaning that people are still in the process of learning how to play it proficiently.



Made some nice points there too Markleford.

[Schumusica]

It is really cool indeed, but watch, it's US$3390.00 ...

[deastman]

...and you thought the Continuum looked cool. Surely even Bones will be interested in this one...

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

[rockstar_not]

...and you thought the Continuum looked cool. Surely even Bones will be interested in this one...

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/

Now that looks like something new and wonderful.

-Scott