Want to get more expression out of your keyboard?
One way is to put it on wheels – as this video of Mark Steiner‘s ‘Wobble Wagon’ demonstrates.
Here’s what Steiner has to say about his controller hack:
First test/proof of concept. As much as I love the QuNexus keyboard, the one thing I thought it would do best is not something it does well… natural pitch vibrato. But I love the pressure per key controlling sound brightness/filter. So I made the Wobble Wagon to add natural, side to side vibrato. It can also have other keyboard types put on it, as the photos show.
More adjustments to come, but this test shows that it can do the natural pitch vibrato. Adding stuff soon to help it return to an accurate center pitch.
Brilliant idea. Another good use for QuNexus.
I do not know if synthesizer manufacturers check out the postings on Synthtopia, but they should, because there is always something new to discover. The process to produce vibrato in this demonstration reminds me in some way of how vibrato is achieved when playing the Ondes Martenot.
I wish every synthesizer had the ability to achieve vibrato directly from the keys of the keyboard itself. On any number of synthesizer forums, I have read postings where people have wanted the ability to utilize vibrato directly from the keys of their synthesizer.
There are so many innovative ideas that hearken back or take a note from early analog synthesizers, case in point, the Ondes Martenot.
Maybe there is a deeper reason and need that engineers, manufacturers, and musicians are re-examining early electronic instruments like the Ondes Martenot, perhaps, because it really has not been surpassed in some ways. I am glad Mark Steiner had the creativity, knowledge, and chutzpah to make this a reality.
This is great. I am one of those people who miss the ability to create vibrato using just my fingers without extra controls that get in the way (mod/pitchbend wheel/joystick for instance). I hope we will see a trend towards tools for making music instead of the endless stream of controllers with knobs and buttons. It’s good for people who do the controllerism thing but there needs to be some love for us keyboard players out there who envy the players of stringed instruments.
so no one is finding this a little bit funny ?
Of course it looks sort of strange and even a little silly – but it also works and opens up new ways for the user to play.
I’d like to see this with racing stripes!
I too got the QuNexus hoping for some sweet vibrato action. It’s cool in other ways, but this is not the vibrato keyboard you are looking for.
It sounds a bit goofy when applied to just a synth tone, but with a little tightening up for better stability as he described, it could become “violin”-worthy for Martenot styling. I think I’d be more prone to really engage the Q’s standard controllers and develop my approach from that angle, but as Rube-Goldberg-like as this hack seems, since when was working on a better personal approach a bad thing? 😀