Unfortunate functional design choices?

[ChiefDanG]

Squishy pitch bend and modulation surrogates, such as the ARP Odyssey's PPC goobers. My XKeys have them and they generally defy anything but full-on triggering. Delicate shifts aren't really their long suit. Its a tradeoff for the slim form factor. I have joystick and Moog-wheeled tools where needed, but rubbery buttons never seem to hit the mark.

 

The ARP Odyssey was my first serious synth. Pitch bend was done by rotating a dial, with a supposed 1/8 inch dead area for original pitch. Still, that was better than those squishy buttons.

[3rdAct]

It's like: that we can just take some sample, detune and envelope it a bit is enough to make music. That according to a lot of formerly famous artists' examples is not really the main modus operandi (operandus ?). It might seem so to simple minds, but really, the design of a sound, including tone and production ought to be (a whole lot) more. So the functional design of making music with some samples is kind of wrong, really. If you bought into that premise, the subsequent lower levels of music making can be covered by simplistic "knobs on front-panels" design choices, but usually the poetic side is at least alluded to.

 

And the unfortunate idea modern computers with some sound device can easily enough create beautiful music is kind of wrong, because creating proper waves is hard. Many try, most never succeed is proof of that error of theorems. So my argument is though actually: digital cams often suck. That is what I'm saying.

Ah, ok, I think what youre saying is that if a sound someone created is not perfect, in some absolute sense, then it is not worth using to play anything.

 

I guess I am (unapologetically) much more practically minded.

-Ill gladly use a decent clonewheel in a live setting because the sound is more than adequate for me and I dont want to haul around a B3 and Leslie,

-Id be happy with a digital camera if the image is adequate for the picture size and intended usage.

-engineers producing even the best designs will specify tolerances, because it would be unnecessarily costly to try to manufacture the product to higher precision.

 

Then, given an acceptable end state (to me), Id like the instrument or camera to be as easy to use as possible. Thats it for me.