Each finger wears a sort of thimble with a point on the end, & moves about on a "sonar"ish touchpad: y-axis as pitch, x-axis as timbre (or alterable), & have it sensitive to velocity for loudness. Then: MIDIze, or other at your discretion.

You could quantify the y-axis, so that it would be in the familiar 12-tone, but a countinuum of pitches is more attractive to me. (ala the infamous Theremin)

Finger drumming would take on new significance.

Alternatively, (some) fingers could be assigned sound effect parameters instead of voices.
-- redundantly_redundant, Nov 16 2002

Touched By Sound DRM-1 http://www.creative...rev_Syncussion.html
Syncussion reviewed "beeeoooww" [thumbwax, Oct 04 2004]

Delving further into the same unit and it's sisters http://www.analogue.../drumsyncussion.htm
Note the Analogue Clap Synthesizer <Obligatory "I've got the Clap" Go-Go's mockery song Post> [thumbwax, Oct 04 2004]

Does the "drum" alter the sound, or is the sound a result of only the um, - digital - movement/force?
-- thumbwax, Nov 16 2002


that's an interesting point, [thumbwax]. Most velocity sensitive MIDI insturments, i think all really, just keep getting louder as you keep pushing harder. In "real" insturments, the timbre changes with how loud. A a guitar played like the kool-aid-man goes "bowww", but bob marleys goes "engk-a-chnk-a". It'd be kool to reflect that in digital sound. So ahh, yea: depending on the voice, it'd be nifty to have a threshold where if you press so hard, the timbre changes. Or so light.
-- redundantly_redundant, Nov 16 2002


Ever see or play a Syncussion? Incredible - hard to have absolute control of the effect if a new *hit* occurs while another *hit* is still sounding, though - as you say - the timbre changes. See links - 2nd says it's totally controllable.
-- thumbwax, Nov 16 2002


[rods], know of any alternatives to MIDI?
-- redundantly_redundant, Nov 16 2002


//a guitar is not able to 'lift' a note up again once it's died out a bit.//
What about an EBow - will that pick it up again?
-- thumbwax, Nov 16 2002


I'm no touch-screen expert but something that could be done is using a flat LCD touch-screen controlled by software -- the relationship between where you put your finger(s) and the midi data created could be completely customized in the software package, as well as the visual interface! That would be wicked.

Can a touch-screen process more than one "finger" at a time? Every time i've used them the were pretty much just emulating a mouse. Also, i doubt they are pressure sensitive. So there's another idea right there, a pressure sensitive touch-screen.

A graphics tablet is probably closer to what would be needed.
-- bruno, Nov 18 2002


//A graphics tablet is probably closer to what would be needed//
I thought LSD came in tab form
-- thumbwax, Nov 18 2002



random, halfbakery