The Persephone
, user’s manual, mesi©2006
-
6
-
An additional series of circuits could be added to control the timbre of the
note by amplifying the harmonics of the fundamental note, non harmonic
partials could also be added by selective filtering. This unique form of
subtractive synthesis produced a tone that was distinctive and unusual when
compared to the usual heterodyning valve instruments of the 1920-30s. The
foot pedal of the machine controlled the overall volume. The "Sonar",
developed by N. Anan'yev in the USSR from 1930 also had a fingerboard
continuous controller to vary the pitch of the oscillator.
After the 40s, the general use of keyboards (and the war) slowed down the
research of new types of controls. Ribbon controllers were back in the 1960s
with Moog ribbon controllers which Keith Emerson was famous for
attaching to a pyrotechnics control. The Theremin-like sound in the Beach
Boys' song "Good Vibrations," was played by a ribbon-controlled
instrument called the Electro-Theremin which the Beach Boys have later
replaced by a Moog ribbon controller with a Moog synthesizer in live
performances.
Between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, several different types of non-
keyboard synthesizer controllers were developed, in particular percussion,
guitar and wind. Only a few synthesizers from the 1980s had other types of
controls: the Yamaha CS80’s ribbon controller, which unlike pitch-bend
wheels and the Moog ribbon controller design, has no centre position.
Kurzweil also included ribbon control to their synths, the Korg Prophecy as
well. Some more controllers have been designed in the 1980s, but remained
very uncommon. Michel Waisvisz developed The Hands, during the early
1980s at STEIM in Amsterdam.
At the turn of the 21
st
century, new possibilities arose with the development
of sensor technology and new computer controls while the development of
powerful flexible sensor interfaces like the eobody developed by
eowave/Ircam was transcending the limits of traditional controls… And this
new taste for other sorts of control has entered the world of electronic music
with controllers like the Kaoss Pad or tactile surface controllers.
