Synthesist Josh Madoff shared this comprehensive tour of the Haken Continuum, a powerful synthesizer that features continuous polyphonic expressive control of pitch, volume, timbre and more.
The Continuum was created by Lippold Haken and its synthesis engine, EaganMatrix, by Ed Eagan. The Continuum instrument offers continuous realtime polyphonic control in three dimensions, giving the instrument expressive control comparable to traditional acoustic instruments. EaganMatrix uses a matrix interface, similar to the the ARP 2500, but is much more powerful, and tailored to multidimensional realtime expressive control. EaganMatrix is also the sound engine for the ContinuuMini, EaganMatrix Eurorack module and the Expressive E Osmose.
“Lippold and Ed asked me to do a comprehensive video covering all of the wonderful things the Haken Continuum can do,” notes Madoff. “It’s a tour through the world of the Continuum from a musician’s perspective, with musical examples to illustrate every feature and capability.”
“It was really an honor to work on this for Haken Audio,” adds Madoff. “The Continuum has had such a profound impact on my music and career, and I’ve found this to be true for so many others who practice and play the instrument.”
Topics Covered:
00:00 Intro
00:29 Sensitivity
04:20 Rounding (Pitch Correction)
05:42 The Power of the EaganMatrix
08:07 Touch Area Presets
09:36 Pedals, Sustain & Sostenuto
11:41 Traditional Midi & The EaganMatrix
13:15 Internal FX Engine
16:07 Processor Presets
16:44 Make Your Own Sound
21:43 Overlays
26:31 “Analog” Sounds
29:40 Controlling Analog Synths (The Haken CVC)
32:50 Inputs & Outputs
34:23 Final Thoughts
There is a dog with a bone attitude with proponents of expressive keyboards that we all want to listen to music that slides up and down like some bizarre cacophony of traditional Chinese music. Controlled vibrato….lovely, tasteful glissandos……nice, drunk man with a violin…..no thanks.
Check out Expressive E Osmose. It’s far more practical than a Continuum and features the same synth engine.
EaganMatrix is supposed to get new overlay features… I now Expressive E Osmose is going to be using or building custom overlays to make EaganMatrix much easier to use. Looking forward to seeing Haken become more mainstream and easier-to-use!
I’d be curious to compare this with Loopop’s pretty indepth video from a few years back.
I see a Continuum and my first thought is of the Doctor and his scarf. Still waiting for someone to stress that while, as with the violin, guitar, or piano, one can learn to play within minutes, instruments like the Continuum take years of dedicated practice to achieve mastery. Also innate talent, but that seems to be fading into obscurity as time goes by. Anyone can be a musician these days. (No, not everyone can be a musician, but there’s no money in that.)
Impressive
I wonder why they keep throwing around “tanh” without explaining that it means hyperbolic tangent, and that such trigonometric considerations haven’t been stressed since the introduction of that other beloved instrument the Yamaha DX7. Everyone loves programming FM on the DX, right?