Matt Gilbert (who blog-watchers will remember as the creator of the scrollbar scarf) has been thinking about speech synths: "Speech synthesis is usually about converting text to speech, but what if you approached it differently?" He designed a great-looking instrument out of curved wood, string, rubber bands and faders. As you press on the strings, it triggers a Max/MSP patch which emulates a voice. It's can't speak, but gets pretty close to singing. As ever, this makes no sense until you see this slightly freaky demo video [QT](thanks, Roberto)
Posted by Tom Whitwell.
Comments:
This is awesome. It's yet another way to play that totally useless "yow-I-yah" quasi vocal patch found on all Korg and Yamaha synths since around the time of the Prophecy and the EX5. Nothing musically valid has yet come from it.
I also waste my time. But, unlike me, at least he's trying eh.
I like it. The design is simple and graceful, and I think the usage of rubber bands is brilliant, especially if the tension is sending CCs, not just on/off. Hard to tell from the video exactly what's happening there, but I'm impressed!