Re: Continuum 'fingerboard' controller

["Dennis W. Leas" <dennis@mdbs.com>]

Odd that you should mention this.

Two weeks ago I got a chance to play this 'fingerboard'.  I was attending a
"Kyma Immersion Weekend" held by Symbolic Sound.  (And no, water was not
involved!)  We visited Lippold Haken and his 'fingerboard', two floors 
down from
us Kymites.

Impressions: Extremely high quality workmanship.  Lippold had the 
fingerboard
configured at the time to sound like conventional instruments, i.e., 
violin,
cello, clarinet, horn, trombone, etc.  I found it hard to accurately (and
reproducibly) control the pitch.  But I don't play fretless instruments.  
[BTW:
Lippold is a cellist.]  The fingerboard is extremely responsive to minute
changes.  For example, you can wobble your fingertip and get any desired 
degree
of vibrato.  With ten fingers down and wobbling, you can get ten different
qualities of vibrato.  Almost overwhelming!  I wanted to use Tabla playing
techniques because precise finger placement is critical with those drums.  
Since
then, I've been thinking that it would make a great controller for
textures/timbre/tone colors.

Dennis Leas
-----------------------------
dennis@mdbs.com