Developer Geert Bevin (Director of Software Development at Moog Music, and creator of the original MPE specification) has released a collection of open source designs for 3D-printed patch sheet overlays for the visually impaired.
The patch sheets work the same as the original printed patch sheets, below, but replace the printed indicators with tactile markings, as shown above:
“While going through the patch sheet transcription, I kept thinking that there had to be better ways to convey patch information without relying solely on vision,” he notes. Being a 3D printer enthusiast, Bevin went on to create tactile designs and test them with Tim Burgess of Raised Bar, a project to improve the accessibility of musical equipment and resources for visually-impaired musicians.
“Hopefully this is an inspiring starting point for other people and can spark further research and innovation in this domain. Everything in this work is open-sourced under the New BSD license.”
Bevin’s project includes a vocabulary of design elements for translating patch sheets into tactile versions, and a collection of the factory DFAM and Mavis patch sheets, ready to 3D print.
See the Bevin’s site for details.
i like this idea very much. Although i would prefer a papermade version and not 3D printed… Either you could cut out (punch) the “preset knob position” or you could coin it (not sure if coin is the right word for that), like Braille Typography…
Bravo
because there’s waaaaaaay more completely blind synthesist’s than color blind ones.
That’s me. Unable to tell if I am starting to clip cause I cannot differentiate between the yellow/green and orange led lights from my Octatrack. It sucks
please John, show us the statistics you used in your research.