New firmware and software update for the Continuum Fingerboard
Haken Audio has announced a new firmware and software update for the Continuum Fingerboard. The new version 5.01 includes additions to the innovative programmable synthesizer in the Continuum Fingerboard, the EaganMatrix.
The EaganMatrix design was inspired by classical modular matrix patching synthesizers such as the ARP 2500 and the EMS Synthi 100. However, unlike those analog predecessors, the EaganMatrix doesn’t use pins to make patch point connections. Instead, a dynamic formulaic equation can be placed inside a selected patch point, replacing that static pin, creating a simple to amazingly complex relationship between the Continuum playing surface and the flow of sound from patch point source to destination.
The EaganMatrix is a modular digital synthesizer, allowing the user to finely craft their musical sound by digitally connecting audio and control modules via a patching matrix. The EaganMatrix synthesizer is internal to the Continuum Fingerboard, utilizing the Continuum’s internal DSP engine. No external hardware is required. The synthesizer is edited by using an external cross platform editing program, the Continuum Editor. More information: http://www.hakenaudio.com/Continuum/eaganmatrixoverv.html .
Modules: There are a number of source and destination modules available, everything from oscillators and filters to direct formulas. Here is a listing of currently available modules:
* Three flexible summation oscillators, each with controls for frequency, phase, and spectral balance. The oscillators can also act as wave shapers, creating rich harmonic variations to the oscillator input.
* A smooth organic-sounding noise source.
* Two versatile multimode filters, with these inputs: audio to be filtered, frequency, and bandwidth. Possible filters are LowPass, HighPass, BandPass, LowShelf and HighShelf, as well as unity gain BandPass, Notch, and AllPass.
* Two powerful biquad filter banks, which are banks of 8 related but independent biquad filters, with controls for audio input, frequency, frequency spread, bandwidth, bandwidth spread, spectral centre, and spectral weighting. These biquads are the same technology that are used in the current Continuum to create the physical models like the winds and strings. This filters can also act as granular synthesis modules, and a vocal mouth shapes.
* A time delay, with controls for audio input and time. The time delay is suitable for creating chorus and flanging effects, and can be used for echo delays as well.
* Four independent LFOs, each with controls for cycle mode, frequency, and trigger. Available LFO shapes are RampUp, RampDown, Pulse, Triangle, Hann, Square, Sine, and SampleAndHold. The LFOs have been integrated into the EaganMatrix a unique way, allowing each LFO to influence a formula result directly.
* 8 CVC (Continuum Voltage Convertor) outputs. This requires that a CVC be connected to the Continuum to be active.
* 3 independent Midi controller streams for sending formulas to a connected Midi device.
* Output level via formulas.
Also, there are common controls for all voices:
* Reverb control via formulas.
* Convolution body control via formulas.
The output stage incorporates a soft saturation capability, allowing the creation of distortion and overloading effects.
The download for version 5.01 is available in the downloads section of the Haken Audio site: http://www.hakenaudio.com/Continuum/hakenaudiofirmwa.html .
Continuum Fingerboard and modular synth – eight improvisations
Here’s what author has to say about it:
No Midi. The Haken’s internal sound “clinical oscillator 1” was routed to the Analogue Systems RS-35 External Processor and Doepfer A-119 to generate pitch cv, envelope and triggers.
Awesome how minimal changes in finger pressure brings about so much voltage control with the Wiard JAG distributing cv to different modules simultaneously. The Blacet Frequency Divider together with Malekko Wiard Noisering and Doepfer Wasp filter made for bass rumbling, f(h) SOS through spring reverb module provided noisy delay patterns, TipTop Z5000 was used for reverb and additional delay. Also: ADDAC Complex Random, Analogue Solutions CVT, MFB Triple Osc, Doepfer LPG, Hinton Switchmix, PlanB M13.
The Haken Continuum – fingerboard improvisation
This is what I call a “SHOW & TELL” video. It’s the kind of video people make when they get a new musical instrument they haven’t the slightest idea how to play and they’re dying to show it off to the world even though it’s only been out of the box for five minutes!
This instrument is called the HAKEN CONTINUUM FINGERBOARD and it’s wonderful. In this video I am playing only one sound (a very “breathy” timbre that is somewhere between a clarinet and a Persian flute), and I am using only one voice (although it is a polyphonic instrument).
What distinguishes this instrument from other interfaces is that it is played in three dimensions: from left to right, forward & backward, and up & down. The hand of the player slides and dances on a smooth neoprene cushion constantly changing and “sculpting” the sound as it goes. Parameters can be altered to suit the musician, but in this video pitch is controlled by moving to the left and to the right like a standard keyboard, volume is controlled by pressure up and down on the neoprene surface, and timbre is controlled by movement of the hand forward and backward. A single hand can perform any or all of these movements at any given moment. This frees the other hand to play another keyboard (which is what I do in this video), or control some other device.
The continuum is limited only by your own musical imagination. What you see me do in this video is just one sound and one voice. It is infinitely more versatile than anything that could be shown in just a couple of minutes. Although the continuum is essentially a MIDI/CV controller interface, it has a large menu of its own sounds built into it. These sounds were prototyped by continuum virtuoso Edmund Eagan in Kyma, Symbolic Sound and the prototypes were then hand coded by Lippold Haken (the inventor of the instrument) for the fingerboard’s digital signal processor.
Yeah, I know, it all sounds terribly complicated, but it’s not. The instrument is very “friendly”, easy to understand and a lot of fun!
Stay tuned for “The Haken Continuum MIDI Fingerboard Meets the Moog MIDI Etherwave Theremin” – two of the most exotic and unusual electronic music interfaces ever conceived.
Miles Davis performed with a Fingerboard and a Moog
Mark Smart uses the Haken Continuum Fingerboard and a modular Moog synthesizer to play Miles Davis’ tune.
Continuum Fingerboard: http://www.hakenaudio.com/Continuum/i…
Mark Smart: http://www.marksmart.net
Pogo Studio: http://www.pogostudio.net/
Pogo Studio’s Moog: http://www.marksmart.net/gearhack/pog…
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