A new instrument found unusual success(theguardian.com) |
A new instrument found unusual success(theguardian.com) |
Feels exactly like E-Ink
Let us have cheap copies for the masses!
So it's actually a case where patents are a good fit: the inventor gets to decide the life of their design (and make a bit of money out of it) before anyone can use it freely.
If the inventor keeps the prices too high, then it is basically the same as ensuring that the public can't have it. That's not good. Inventors and investors should be compensated, and cheap alternatives from other manufacturers should appear.
They’re just not licensing the patent to other manufacturers. Patent trolling is an entirely different thing.
Who? Some data backing the claim up please.
It was to drive attention to a dismissive attitude "this is just X+Y, which already exist".
You’re just sealioning (which is ironically a form of online trolling). You provide the data. You’re the one making the claim that they’re trolling.
No, it's not. Patent trolling has a specific meaning (having vacuous broad patents or using patents against companies who aren't really infringing, associated with not having an actual product and making your money off this, usually having hoarded many patents exactly for this purpose).
This is simply the creator of this design enforcing their patent, like any business with a patented product does.
>Not that they should be able to prevent the production of those inventions like little dictators - that does not advance society.
Nope, it's exactly that they should be able to control the production of their inventions. If it wasn't for that control, patents would have no practical purpose.
> [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
Now quoting from the US Patent and Trademark Office at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/essentials#questions
"A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. ... What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action."
Perhaps you did not explain it well enough and can provide more details?
Without it, I see no serious conflict or disagreement between my quick summary and the more complete history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law
You very obviously have not. I'm not going to do your job for you and spoon-feed it to you like a child. This isn't complicated, any truly introspective person with critical thinking skills can handle this.
> "That is not what a patent is for. It may unfortunately currently be legal, but that isn't its true purpose."
I know the original purpose of copyright was to inhibit publication the government did not want, which only later became modern copyright. I cannot find anything equivalent for patent law.
If its true purpose is to make money for the elite, I think that's no surprise to anyone. But that seems to be the purpose of most laws, and no reason to single out patent law nor be so opaque.
Given that several others responded to your comment the same way I did, I suppose you think we are all like simple-minded children. I trust you realize that even the smartest of people may need more than "isn't its true purpose" as a hint?
I do hope your "study it out"[1]-like response isn't hiding some baseless conspiracy theory.
[1] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/10/12/1143767/--Study-...
Romney Supporter: All you have to do is study it out. Just study it out and you'll see. You haven't done your homework, buddy.
Matthews: What do I need to study?
Romney Supporter: He's a communist. And those of us who are not voting for him know it.
Here's a photo I took of the original StarrBoard in Gainesville, FL in 1997: https://imgur.com/pilVv8b
[1] https://starrettguitars.com/
[2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q2hIMZ8AAAAJ&hl=en
Multi-scale guitars have been out of patent for years now. And if the harpejji was invented in 2007, then I believe it should go out of patents next year? I hope the resulting competition makes them up their game.
I've worked on my own instruments many many years ago (with a little help from a professional luthier). I'd say if you're designing a new instrument, multi-scale should be a consideration; even if it's just a plain old boring guitar, your biggest constraint is the choice of a bridge.
Glad to hear Strandbergs are nice... I'm sorely tempted by one.
This tapping instrument seems very nice but certainly not bizarre, if you want bizarre, look under a d10 pedal steel. If i were to buy a tapping guitar, I would also look at Markus Reuters, touchguitars.com.
Patent lifetimes are at least 20 years after the filing date as per TRIPS treaty. There's the priority mechanism for international filing, providing up to another year, and there are usually various means for additional protection time if regulations delayed the process. Those are mostly relevant for medical patents to compensate for trial-based delays, but "the PTO was too slow" seems to be reasonable ground for an extension, too.
As such, we're looking at 2028.
I was wondering what you could mean: in the US, before ~1997 patents used to be valid 17 years from the date of patent grant, which would fit the timeframe you mention. Grant date was usually a few years down the road and with submarine patents (keeping them in limbo by continually sending minor changes to the USPTO until it's worth having them active), that span could be extended practically infinitely. That time is, thankfully, over.
It's an Ableton device to map the keys of a Novation LaunchPad as if it were an 8 string, 8 fret guitar. I play the guitar but not the piano, but play a lot of synths. This bridges the gap for me, and it's so, so, so much fun.
I'm thinking about doing a dedicated hardware version with proper midi out, touch sensitivity and integrated capo/octave knobs. Maybe worth dusting that idea off if this guy was so successful..
I'm also working on an electronic instrument. What I do is glue felt on the back of a sheet of 1/8" birch ply (using liquid hide glue), and then laser cut all my button tops out of that.
The buttons are held in place by a laser-cut wooden frame, also 1/8" birch ply but without the felt. I stick packing tape to the back of the frame sticky-side up, so I can drop the button-tops in place (felt side down) and they stay put without falling out. The felt is there so the bottons have a little give to them when you press on them.
This wood/tape/felt assembly sits on top of a sheet of force-sensitive resistor, which in turn sits on a printed circuit board. Under each button there are two sets of exposed (ENIG-plated) copper traces configured like interdigitized fingers.
Pressing on the button presses on the FSR which presses against the traces, and the electrical resistance between both sets of traces drops. You can measure the drop with a simple voltage divider circuit connected to an ADC.
By using a lot of multiplexers or certain kinds of shift registers, it's possible to read hundreds of buttons.
Sensitronics makes a very nice FSR material, but I've found Velostat works quite nicely too and is vastly cheaper.
I am moving toward 3d printed pivoting keys with an internal mirrored surface that reflects variable amounts of light into a photoresistor depending on depression. Would prefer the velostat though if it can work reliably
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5T-9RPW4pg
He has a lot of great content in general and musical talent, if you’ve never come across him before. Worth diving into.
About 10 years ago I visited him in his studio where he had all mocked up in paper and cardboard, putting all the pieces together. Fun to see it finally out and in people's hands.
It is a very fun-looking instrument. Isomorphic keyboards are an internet black hole to me.
What kind of velocity-sensitive input sensors do these things use? Definitely not regular computer keyboard ones.
And it gets better when you see the scales and chords section.
The video also explains that it uses piezoelectric sensors.
The CEO insisted to have Stevie Wonder try it. What surprised me is that he (SW) looked impressed doing so, moving virtual faders on a glass screen with no tactile feedback.
That was my first realization that music is a business like any other, and getting a famous person doing a PR stunt for your product may be beneficial, even though they're not at all the intended consumer.
But also, SW was using his ears more than his fingers to get the feedback the product was lacking, and so what started as a bad joke made me respect him even more.
Obviously he has a couple of metric tons of experience as a musician so can probably make a potato sound interesting, but still ... odd choice.
This is a great thing about physical instruments: it's easy to tell the relationship between what the performer does, and what sound comes out. (Like, "he hit a piano key, and the piano made one note.")
I've been to electronic music concerts, and a lot of the time it's just some guy fiddling with his MacBook, and cool music is coming out of the speakers, but it's not clear what he's really doing.
The implication is that the technique used for the Harpejji is much more similar to piano: every note in a scale is played on a different string, and chords are produced by 'skipping' notes / strings. Whereas scales on the Stick are usually laid out using 3 notes per string on the melody side (exactly like the guitar), and 4 notes per string on the bass.
That's pretty unique.
The Chapman Stick just uses a mechanical damper where the nut is so the open strings don't ring out, and fairly standard magnetic pickups.
This, however, has important differences in design and operation, the most significant of which is the use of "an electronic muting system to dampen unfretted strings and minimize the impact of sympathetic vibrations."
The same Eaganmatrix engine used in the Continuum has also shown up in the Expressive E Osmose, so apparently Haken is willing to work with other companies to integrate their synth in more products -- and the result is quite an amazing device. Haken also makes a standalone Eurorack module.
I'm not sure if there's a good open-source MPE synth that's easy to port to microcontrollers. Surge is really impressive but it's not made to run on simple embedded platforms.
I know it's not quite the same thing as you're asking for, but when you dig into the linnstrument it turns out to be very hackable.
But maybe I didn't google the correct word for it.
A long time ago I asked on a music theory forum (probably on Usenet, but maybe on Reddit) what would be the best instrument to accompany learning music theory on. The answer given was the chromatic button accordion.
The buttons are in regular rows with alternating rows offset so that from any given button (except on the edges) there are 6 neighboring buttons arranged so that they are on the vertices of a hexagon. Moving diagonally through the hexagons moves in consecutive minor 2nds on one diagonal, major 2nds on another diagonal, and minor 3rds on the remaining diagonal.
On the harpejji each note position you'd have 2 directions that give minor 2nds, one that gives major 2nds, and one that gives minor 3rds, so should similar to the chromatic button accordion.
I wonder if in practice the offset rows of the accordion are easier or harder to deal with then the non-offset rows of the harpjji?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_(instrument)
I got a chance to try one out recently, and played it for a bit. It was fun.
Coincidentally, I found a 1976 video[2] of David Vorhaus playing his Kaleidophon around the same time which gave me the same skeptical vibe.
None of this chromatically scaled stuff would be very interesting to him.
Partch's instruments in case anyone's interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UZjhTlGT0o&t=672s
They really have to be seen an heard.
https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument
Is open source too.
The Disting Ex [0] Eurorack module contains nice ones and supports MPE. You'd also need a PSU [1] for it.
[0] https://expert-sleepers.co.uk/distingEX.html [1] e.g. https://frequencycentral.co.uk/product/microbus/
The spacing of my traces for the interdigitized fingers is about 8 mils, and the traces are about 6 mils wide. I'm using JLCPCB, and they have no problem with that trace width.
I also use an op-amp (TLV274) in voltage-follower mode as a buffer in front of the ADC inputs.
Sensitronics makes a nice simple test board you can use to test various FSR materials with various trace widths: https://www.sensitronics.com/products-xactresponse.php
(Their website doesn't say so, but the board also comes with samples of their FSR material.)
Here's a (somewhat out of date) schematic showing approximately what I'm doing: https://github.com/jimsnow/microtonal-controller/blob/main/d...
(The keybed itself is a separate board that I haven't posted the schematic for yet, but it's mostly just a bunch more shift registers and FSR elements. FSR elements are notated as a squiggly line.)
There's a company called Wooting that makes gaming keyboards with analog key travel sensors. Their current design uses magnets and hall effect sensors, but I believe their earlier versions used LEDs, light sensors, and mirrors, which sounds similar to what you're doing.