[LAU] another control surface question

[Len Ovens]

On Thu, 3 Jul 2014, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> You would use belts to get "endless" faders, to avoid motorized restore?
> I guess people who like it tactile, prefer to feel the position of a
> fader knob and btw. we likely want that it appeals to all senses, IOW we
> also want to see the fader knob positions.

I have been trying to think what things are about tactile feel are helpful 
to doing the job and what parts are pure resistance to change. One of the 
things I have seen more than once on this list is "use your ears not your 
eyes". Fader positions can be represented as LEDs or on a screen. I note 
that while control surfaces generally use motor faders, they do not use 
motor pots, but rather encoders. Some control surfaces have no indicator 
where the virtual pot is, but rather show the effects on a screen beside 
all the pots, for example a picture of the frequency responce for a group 
of pots used for eq. Others have a light ring, but the light ring even for 
something with 128 or more values only has 12 LEDs to show position. Some 
highend surfaces have a dial shaped led display that might have 20 or so 
LEDs right above the encoder. It seems we can only tell aproximatly where 
things are with our eyes anyway.

> Regarding to wheels also keep in mind, that faders could be very long
> but for an "endless" wheel you perhaps can't do the whole fade by
> keeping the finger on the wheel, you perhaps need to set back the finger
> to continue turning the wheel.

Design and training. I would actually think it would be easier to do a 
full fade with a wheel or belt because the user is not restricted to where 
the fader knob is, they can actually put their finger above where the 
virtual fader position is.

> would cost less. I wonder if longer faders would be useful for the 128
> MIDI steps.

1024 actually, 14 bits assigned, though not all are used.


--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net