Now You Can Control the World’s Largest Synthesizer

Posted on March 15, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

Motherboard.tv has an article on what is probably the world’s largest synthesizer (let’s not forget T.O.N.T.O) created by Joe Paradiso over about twelve years starting in 1974. It has recently been installed at MIT. What is amazing is that you can listen to long audio files of patches that Joe creates every couple of weeks, or (now for the really crazy part) visit an online interface to literally control the synth remotely with other users doing the same thing!

Xperia Sola with Floating Touch

Posted on March 14, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

This is not my usual kind of topic, but I just came across an exciting new development. Sony has introduced the Xperia Sola with what they call floating touch capability. The screen on the device detects the presence of a finger up to 20mm away allowing for mouse-like hovering behaviors. What this means for me is that it would be an easy matter to create a velocity sensitive touch keyboard or set of pads on a device with this feature. Simply measure the time between entering the field and actually touching the device and then apply the number to the amplitude, or any other attribute of the sound. There is a significant amount of potential for expression with this technology. I would love to see this on a tablet and develop an instrument it. How would you like to see floating touch (or something like it) used for music applications?

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 6

Posted on March 14, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

This is the sixth piece from a collection of microtracks that I have produced using the Korg Monotribe synchronized with the Sequencial Circuits Pro-One. This one starts out with out drums and then double bass drum fills come in near the end.

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 5

Posted on March 13, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

This is the fifth microtrack from a series that I produced using the Korg Monotribe synchronized with the Sequencial Circuits Pro-One. This one was edited out of a longer session where I was taking a few liberties with knob turning on the Memory Man and on the Pro-One.

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 4

Posted on March 12, 2012 by John C.S. Keston

Here we have the fourth example of microtracks made with the Korg Monotribe synchronized with the Sequencial Circuits Pro-One. The odd time in this case is caused by setting the number of active steps differently for the synthesizer versus the drums — a new feature that was added with the Monotribe 2.0 software update.