Book on DAFX - Digital Audio Effects Edited by Udo Zölzer ISBN: 0-471-49078-4 John Wiley & Sons, 2002

Chapter 12

T. Todoroff

Control, in the broad meaning of the word, encompasses every possible method available to the user for accessing the various parameters of a digital audio effect. It embraces all traditional computer user interfaces, from command-line instructions typed on a computer keyboard to complex window-based GUIs controlled with the mouse. Control also includes specially designed musical interfaces, mainly MIDI triggering devices mimicking various aspects of traditional instruments and widely commercialized by the music industry: organ-like or piano-like keyboards, drum pads, string and wind instrument controllers, as well as common studio controllers like rotary potentiometers, faders and push-buttons. And if all this doesn't give enough possibilities, there is a whole range of more or less experimental devices that have been designed to fulfill more specific needs. They include the radio baton, electro magnetic and ultrasound localization systems, power gloves, complete virtual reality environments, video image analysis systems and just about every possible sensor. This chapter deals with the control of effect processors ranging from general control techniques to control based on sound features and gestural interfaces.

Contents

• Introduction
• General control issues
• Mapping issues
• Assignation
• Scaling
• GUI design and control strategies
  • General GUI issues
  • A small case study
  • Specific real-time control issues
  • GUI mapping issues
  • GUI programming languages
• Algorithmic Control
  • Abstract models
  • Physical models
• Control based on sound features
  • Feature extraction
  • Examples of controlling digital audio effects
• Gestural interfaces
  • MIDI standard
  • Playing by touching and holding the instrument
  • Force-feedback interfaces
  • Interfaces worn on the body
  • Controllers without physical contact
• Conclusion
• Sound and Music
• Bibliography

Keywords: Man-machine Interfaces, User Interfaces, Computer Interfaces

Contents