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by Lindsay Vickery
The audienceâs complaints about
âliveâ electronic music have traditionally
revolved around two problems: electronic instruments
produce sounds that are not as flexible and expressive as
ârealâ instruments; and the simple fact that
electronic music is not interesting to watch, due to the
dominance of the sedentary keyboard synthesizer as the
primary human interface.
The Alternative Controller Project will
create an on going dialog between performance and
instrument design. The instruments fall into two distinct
groups: Quasi-Analog instruments - where the sound source
is acoustic but is electronically manipulated in
real-time and the fully digital Instruments whose sound
source is electronic. The system set up for a
quasi-analog instrument is as follows:
Interesting but usually inaudible sounds
are electronically manipulated and amplified. The
performer has control of FX processing and mixing of the
acoustic sound.
In the fully Digital Instrument set-up the
performer has control of MIDI notes as well as FX,
mixing, Audio CD etc. The Analog to Digital Converter is
an Infusion Systems' I-CubeX which allows 32 separate
'ins' and is capable of data sampling (for ultrasound
distance detection etc) in addition to control voltage
input.
The instrument designs generally rely
on simple cheap technology. Prototype versions will be
built using PVC as the principal structural material. For
later versions of instruments it may be possible to
commission custom instrument bodies from individual
sculptors. Commercial sale is possible in the long
term. Some proposed alternative
controllers are the Snorkel, Joy-Stick Cello, Aeolian
Tension Harp, Piggy-in-the-Middle and Hollota.
26 july 1998 |