Similar Projects

A brief search on youtube for "digital musical instruments" returned two results that seem (at first glance anyway) to be remarkably similar to the kind of picture I had in my head for how my dmi might come out.

This is a fairly good example of the kind of "guitar-inspired" controller I had in mind. It presents an interesting idea for an exciter gesture transducer in the form of the pressure pad. This is a similar controller style. Of course the synthesis behind both of these controllers is analogue and, in my opinion, sounds horrible. The over all controller design though is interesting. Also both projects seem to use this kind of sensor for the pitch selecting controller which I think could be a nice way of doing things. That video is for a Trossen Robotics product. Looking at their website reveals lots of interesting products such as this which could be used as an attack sensor as in the first video. It would (I think) allow discrete or continuous attacks as well as a kind of "after-touch" effect.

One thing both of the instruments have in common is that they are both monophonic instruments. Which begs the question; will be dmi be monophonic or polyphonic?? I suppose polyphonic would allow the greatest levels of expressivity but would necessarily lead to a more complex project.