Sunday Synth Jam: In this video, Sally Sparks plays Rain Morning Appalachia – a solo that explores the expressive synthesis capabilities of the Haken Continuum Fingerboard.
Here’s what she has to say about the performance:
Demonstrating new capabilities with the EaganMatrix synthesizer in the Haken Continuum Fingerboard.
The sound uses the new threshold crossing parameter and makes the instrument come alive in a new way. Lots of fun to play! This patch is called Mountain Slider
It’s like she’s pulling the sounds straight from the mountains. A great player and an incredibly expressive instrument, that just got more expressive.
You mean expensive.
you spelled “worth it” wrong.
I can play similar stuff on my 200 dollar Baby Taylor acoustic guitar and a slide. Saves me about a billion dollars. Whoo hoo!
Congrats! Another one who didn’t get what this thing is about..
Whoo Hoo
No, I think he did get it. Great player and great tech here, no doubt, but to a guitar player this sounds as off and clunky as all the synth guitar stuff does to a keyboard player. As a person who plays both instruments, I love seeing gizmos that cross the boundaries, but feel it’s usually a waste to try to emulate one on the other because it’s always a miss.
I think part of the problem is they always use emulations of acoustic, often string instruments, in these demos which while being a great way to show off the expressive capabilities of the controller still pale to what a real string player can do. I think if they used sounds that were synthetic, original and highly expressive it would be more compelling. Still, I would love to try one of these controllers.
That is exactly my point. Using a really expensive electronic instrument to emulate an inexpensive analog instrument always seems kind of strange to me. The Haken seems really cool, though.
I did not try to emulate a guitar in this demo. You’ll notice that I played a bass note well below guitar range, and the patch is set to let strings ring that would not ring on a guitar. Rather, I was playing with the new feature that let the sound be re-triggered by subtle motion. And even that motion I overemphasized to be able to clearly demonstrate what was going on. The Haken Continuum designers (and most players) don’t seek to perfectly emulate other instruments (although classes of physical instruments are modeled). The instrument takes you in quite new musical directions and modes of expression that are quite unique and extremely musical.
I’m also a guitar player, and if I wanted a slide guitar, I’d pick up my guitar. But I think this does demonstrate some rather extraordinary capabilities from an advanced control surface.