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Thread: Z-5 Analog Abstract Generator

  1. #91
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    swamidog is online now Jr. Woodchuckington Janitor III, Esq.
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    when i first learned to type, there were labels on the keys. later, when i became proficient at touch typing, i stopped relying on them.

    i left the labels on the keys. it didn't make me less of a man.

    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

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    Quote Originally Posted by swamidog View Post
    when i first learned to type, there were labels on the keys. later, when i became proficient at touch typing, i stopped relying on them.

    i left the labels on the keys. it didn't make me less of a man.

    And I'm pretty sure FisherPrice makes a guitar with lables too!
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

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    Quote Originally Posted by laserist View Post
    And I'm pretty sure FisherPrice makes a guitar with lables too!
    *ahem*

    Not exactly. When one is proficient, they no longer need them and some guitars, indeed, do not have fret markers but most guitars have "labels".

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  4. #94
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    Why does this 'label' talk always degrade to this Mozart/Salieri nonsense? As if the Master never needs a guide, and can lord it over all the 'dilletantes' who do.

    Want to know what the Right Stuff does, and how it does it. Those people really KNOW this, and they don't scorn it. Google for images using search 'cockpit controls' to see what I mean.

    Almost every image is easily characterised as follows:
    Controls are grouped in arrays whose sides rarely exceed 7 elements.
    Liberal use of borders demarcating control sets or displays, and also colours are used to avoid distraction while at same time making it hard to end up looking at the wrong display or set of controls.
    Extensive use of limited repetition and symmetry.
    Make rotary or slide controls, or dials, have only as many 'detents' as required, because it's much clearer than making them all count to ten or some other arbitrary number.
    Controls are placed such as to limit the amount of motion in hand or eye needed to reach a related control.
    Where a sequence of setup moves is needed, especially with a checklist, there is usually a progression across a panel or two rather than random jumps between arbitrary locations.
    THERE IS A REMARKABLE ABSENSE OF LABELS except for heavy use of acronyms, and many of those that do exist are visual rather than verbal.

    So isn't it time people quit confusing a demand for labels with a suggestion that there is a need to think about the signal flow and the ordering of control groupings? Find an image of the Sequential Circuits Pro One (or Prophet Five) synthesiser. Its groupings are very basic, just rectangular borders with rounded corners. With those, it is easy to know where an ADSR envelope generator is, as opposed to an oscillator or filter control. It's dead simple, and without them finding a control on a darkened stage would be a bitch, for sure. And it's no accident that one of the most important GUI 'controls' is actually the 'static text' and the 'group box'. Even when people hate text labels they still code group boxes! I notice that DZ rightly doesn't scorn those either. It may be that a few more might help, or maybe rethinking layout according to the convention that places control lines vertically and main signal flow horizontally from left to right might help, or any number of other ideas, so long as they bear in mind successful conventions already used. Most of this stuff is based on the kinds of thinking that went into cockpit controls because of limited space and limited pilot movement. So instead of arguing about labels, why not cut to the chase, then look more deeply into this, because it's a lot more interesting that way.
    Last edited by The_Doctor; 01-03-2014 at 14:29.

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    Thanks for the compliments guys! And I appreciate reading the different perspectives on this. Fact is, there are a million ways an analog console can be built. With or without labels, patching, etc etc. In the past, I've played around with a couple different consoles, from the very complex to the very basic. Even built a few many years ago. When I saw the P-4, actually what I first saw was a console that had the guts of the P-4 with heavily modified home-grown panel (some folks saw this at SELEM). What I really liked about the P-4 is that it's relatively compact and very capable. And I very much appreciate the fact that Ash has allowed me to bring this product back. I feel that in time folks who use this console will be able to play it like an instrument, never having to even look at the console. And regarding the panel, I've also offered the board alone for folks who feel adventurous enough to wire up their own panel to be more complex or less complex than the Z-5 panel. I have to admit that I'm surprised there have been no takers on this. Well, except for one, there's a guy working on a bad-ass color mod circuit and I'm trying like hell to get him a board to make it work with his color mod circuit. I may end up just lending him my Z-5 for a while, but I need it at the moment to help with wiring up other panels. So much work and so little time!!

    By the way, Z-5 number 2 shipped out today. Brad, I'll be ordering parts for your console this weekend and hope to have it finished in time for FLEM. I'm kinda looking forward to hooking my console and your console up in series and see what kind of abstracts 6 oscillators will create!

    Ash, just curious, since you are in the states, any chance of you making a quick trip to Florida around March 1st?! We will be having a Florida Laser Enthusiast Meeting that weekend. Bascially, about a day and a half of laser shows and all sort of crazyness with quite a few hobbyist from around the South East. Even Bill Benner is suppose to be there.

  6. #96
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    i would for sure love to have one. if the funding ever falls into my lap, expect a call on the red phone.

    c.


    Quote Originally Posted by DZ View Post
    Thanks for the compliments guys! And I appreciate reading the different perspectives on this. Fact is, there are a million ways an analog console can be built. With or without labels, patching, etc etc. In the past, I've played around with a couple different consoles, from the very complex to the very basic. Even built a few many years ago. When I saw the P-4, actually what I first saw was a console that had the guts of the P-4 with heavily modified home-grown panel (some folks saw this at SELEM). What I really liked about the P-4 is that it's relatively compact and very capable. And I very much appreciate the fact that Ash has allowed me to bring this product back. I feel that in time folks who use this console will be able to play it like an instrument, never having to even look at the console. And regarding the panel, I've also offered the board alone for folks who feel adventurous enough to wire up their own panel to be more complex or less complex than the Z-5 panel. I have to admit that I'm surprised there have been no takers on this. Well, except for one, there's a guy working on a bad-ass color mod circuit and I'm trying like hell to get him a board to make it work with his color mod circuit. I may end up just lending him my Z-5 for a while, but I need it at the moment to help with wiring up other panels. So much work and so little time!!

    By the way, Z-5 number 2 shipped out today. Brad, I'll be ordering parts for your console this weekend and hope to have it finished in time for FLEM. I'm kinda looking forward to hooking my console and your console up in series and see what kind of abstracts 6 oscillators will create!

    Ash, just curious, since you are in the states, any chance of you making a quick trip to Florida around March 1st?! We will be having a Florida Laser Enthusiast Meeting that weekend. Bascially, about a day and a half of laser shows and all sort of crazyness with quite a few hobbyist from around the South East. Even Bill Benner is suppose to be there.
    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

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    I'm glad to see people's interest in this and it shipping.

  8. #98
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    At the risk of pissing people off, I submit the following....

    I for one, appreciate the fact that there will be labels on the Z-5. I do not possess an engineering degree or working knowledge of synthesizers. Some basic instruction to get up and running is invaluable - as opposed to blindly turning an unmarked dial or moving a slider in hopes of remembering what I just did. Or why it did it. I would like to think that in time, I'd be able to operate it while looking at the image and do it by touch but, after years of typing, I am an individual that still needs to glance at a keyboard... or look for a mother of pearl dot on a fret board... and piano?? Forget it. I was a tuba player and instruments that require more than three fingers are something I sadly have never had an aptitude for. As much as I'd love to learn to play the sax... ain't happening. (I'm looking forward to a skin for the APC40 once they're no longer backordered too. (Yeah, I know...wimp. I hear ya.)

    But for those who are truly that wigged out about this analog control box having labels I (again) submit the following:

    1) Um... don't look down?
    2) Reverse Norty's suggestion of white tape and a sharpie to some black electrical tape covering the labels. You DO have that laying around, no?
    3) Don't BUY one for Christ sake.

    Simple solutions for complicated people.

    And I'm not too proud to take whatever text, manual, flowchart or other instruction DZ dreams up. It's a viable starting point to learning. Otherwise college bookstores wouldn't need to exist.

    Rant over. (Sorry, it just seems like a silly argument.) Sure, I appreciate the fact that eventually one should be able to operate it without looking and, perhaps to be a "professional" it should be without question but, starting off? C'mon.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    I was a tuba player and instruments that require more than three fingers are something I sadly have never had an aptitude for.
    You got nothing to be ashamed of. My angle on this whole thing translates to tubas like this: Someone worked out all that tubing, the flow of air, the lengths, volumes, bends in tubing, and keys, and that just three of those keys will allow a full scale to be played. That was clever, but as any horn player knows (including some people like me who never played one but wished they had been around one long enough to at least try), it takes nothing away from the skill of the player because without those keys the number of competent players worldwide can be counted on the fingers of both hands. In short, I'm talking about the kind of thought that goes into designing any instrument. And as that is what DZ is clearly intending to do, he'll do ok. I imagine that when brass instruments originally got their three keys there were horn players screaming blue bloody murder about all the dilettantes now enabled to play a horn, but given all the extra good music that resulted, we're lucky their argument didn't win. And in really good hands a natural horn still sounds damn good too. Adolph Sax got a pasting from his critics too, but fortunately they ended up silenced by so many saxes outnumbering their cries.

    The thing to take from all that, if nothing else, is that for a thing to be really simple, a lot of thought must go into it. This is true for music, physics, pretty much anything. Appearing simple, and actually being so, not the same thing at all. If it were, we'd all be thinking up stuff like E=mc2 every day, and we aren't.

    EDIT: I can play a keyboard and an electric bass, but I can't play either without looking at times. As far as I know, most concert pianists spend a lot of time glancing at the keyboard too... I think there may be many buskers who can bellow out a tune without looking at their guitar once, but most bands I saw live would look at their instruments whenever things got tough to play. Kind of hard to play well if you're fighting against natural use of one of the vital senses in an effort to look cool. Stevie Wonder could pull it off, largely because he had no choice.
    Last edited by The_Doctor; 01-03-2014 at 20:24.

  10. #100
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    Where is the "like" button? Oh yeah, this isn't Facebook. Thanks Doc!

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