Sound design for the Continuum Fingerboard: Effective mapping of finger data to synthesis parameters.

Abstract

The Continuum Fingerboard tracks the position and pressure of fingers on its playing surface. Its internal computer encodes this finger placement information into Midi data streams. The Continuum has an internal dsp that provides high‐quality on‐board timbres, but often performers expand on this built‐in sound palette with sounds from external synthesizers. The Continuum connects to synthesizers via Midi, and/or to analog modular synthesizers via the Continuum voltage converter. It can be used to control a wide variety of sound synthesis algorithms. When designing sounds for the Continuum, it is important to keep in mind that it is not a keyboard. Sounds that work well with keyboards generally do not work well with the Continuum and will not exploit the full performance potential of the instrument. Sound design techniques for producing high‐quality synthesis algorithms suitable for the Continuum will be presented.