The No-Knob Interface
Precise, 25-Dimensional Control in Real Time With a Single XY Input (And a Little Bit of Topology)
The basic unit of electronic instrument control is the knob (or fader, or button, etc): a discrete device which controls exactly one parameter, and remembers its current state indefinitely if left undisturbed.
The basic unit of control on an acoustic instrument is the gesture: a particular movement of the body. Gestures affect multiple parameters of the instrument at once, and they're not remembered for long: sit still and the instrument gradually lapses into silence.
Knobs can be limiting. They're precise and simple, but a user can only change one or two of them at once, and the permanent retention of state violates our implicit assumptions around conservation of energy. Can we create a control paradigm which is both more responsive and more forgetful? In which it’s easier to move a large number of parameters at once, but those parameters decay naturally towards a ground state?
This talk will describe my research designing a "forgetful instrument" controlled by a carefully designed language of 2-D gestures. The entire synthesis engine (25+ parameters) can be controlled in real time by tracing these gestures on an XY pad controller. No long-term state is retained.
We’ll go right from the philosophical underpinnings, through the mathematics of the gesture language, to the DSP chain recognizing gestures in real time, to the audio processing, and end with a demonstration.
Matthew Creighton
Researcher
Goldsmiths, University of London
I am a DSP programmer, composer-theorist, and performer based in London.
After graduating in Electronic Engineering I worked in radio-frequency signal processing and audio programming for games, later going freelance as a bassist and pianist.
This year I'm completing a studio-based research degree at Goldsmiths, University of London. I'm studying digital musical instruments from a combined technical / social / music-theoretical perspective, then putting that into practice through my own code and music.