Newsgroups: bit.listserv.emusic-l
Date:         Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:48:46 -0500
From:         Brian Adamson <adamson@ITD.NRL.NAVY.MIL>
Subject:      Re: No sight in sounds (fwd)
Comments: To: Electronic Music Discussion List <EMUSIC-L@AMERICAN.EDU>

>
>We are visually oriented creatures as much or more than we are aurally
>oritented. It's how we evolved. We communicate by sound, but we learn
>primarily by watching. Trying to build machines like synths that can be
>used by the blind short-circuits our normal modes of education.
>

    I think we are also somewhat tactile oriented also.  Virtual reality
system with tactile
stimuli as well as visual (or without the visual part for the blind) may
offer some
help here.


>>Actually, I'm not so sure that the problems I encounter with the D50 are all
>>related to my lack of sight.  Be honest, y'all, there's just too many darn
>>parameters!  I counted once, and there's about 340 parameters per sound on
>>that blinkin' keyboard!!  That's alot to program even if you have eyes.  The
>>next stage in technology is going to require not only more control but some
>>other means of control.  Endless rows of knobs, levers, buttons, and
>>joysticks simply won't cut it.  I'm hoping that, upon such a change, the
>>visually-oriented sound creation will suffer a change as well.
>
>This is the sort of statement that crops up here frequently. There are
>too many parameters, and not enough controls. I have yet to see anyone make
>a constructive suggestion on how to solve this dichotomy; the ones who are
>trying for their own solutions are probably hard at work in basements
>somewhere and too busy to argue the point here. |-> I certainly don't
>know of many people who'd willingly oversimplify all their gear to the point
>where it was in 1970.

     Virtual reality systems (still in a distant perhaps virtual future)
may help here.
Controls which cannot be practically implemented mechanically could be
perhaps used.  Examples
which come to mind include 1) joysticks which move in 3 dimensions, 2)
fluid, flexible, bendable,
permeable surface controls, 3) wires bendable and twistable into shapes, 4)
controls which can be ganged
together with a piece of virtual string, the list goes on....

    More complex (even customizable) controls could reduce the endless rows
of knobs and buttons
 we've seen in the past.  A virtual reality user interface will hopefully
be as cost effective as
the standard knob, keypad, and LCD display are today.

    I had a dream the other night of a wondrous synth engine tied to a
virtual reality interface.  I
walked down the halls of a virtual museum filled with synths from the past.
 I marvelled at the attention
to detail the virtual reality programmer had given as a slider on a virtual
Mini Moog stuck a little
about 2/3 the way up the dial.  The accuracy was amazing! Imagine my horror
when walking into a room
with a virtual K2000 only to find a virtual knob and LCD :)


>mike metlay                |
>atomic city                |
>p. o. box 81175            | "'Thppht' spelled backwards is 'thppht'."
>pittsburgh pa 15217-0675   |
>metlay@netcom.com          |
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