The FingerPhone is a complete, fully polyphonic, 25-key touch synthesizer.
It features:
Resistive sensing for pressure and area sensitivity that supports interaction with fingers, pens and other conductive and resistive materials and objects
Gold-plated maze pattern touch area for reliability and responsiveness
Independent tone generation for all 25-notes
Walsh Function Synthesis providing sine, square, pulse and other waveforms
A separate VCA for every key to modulate sound according to pressure and area change, aka Polyphonic aftertouch
Dedicated hardware provides zero latency responsiveness from the touch board.
No scanning, no latency, no jitter, no voice stealing
All WaveForms are available separately panned into stereo according to pitch
Lightweight format is environmentally friendly and fits into a 14inch laptop case
Minimal mechanical components for increased reliability
Accessible components for repairability
Two Stereo Headphone output jacks for individual and shared listening
Line output jack with range of preset mixtures of the core waveforms
Input jack mixed to line output for playing along or daisy chaining a second FingerPhone for even more active touch keys
Trigger, Gate, Envelope and Octave Pitch for modular synth rigs
History by the designer, Adrian Freed
I was fascinated as a teenager by the instrument that helped launch
David Bowie's career, the StyloPhone. That instrument can only play one
note at a time. I knew that if I build a circuit to sense
fingers on a metal plate instead of a stylus, I could make a fully
polyphonic instrument.
That dream would have to wait a few years until I was 17
and able to build the sensing circuit,
groove lines in a copper clad circuit board and arduously build the separate
electronics for every key. When completed I discovered how interesting it
was to be able slide chords around and swell the volume up and down with my fingers.
Unfortunately back then, I couldn't solve the problem that the copper
kept oxidizing and had to be sanded and polished before each playing
session.
This is solved with gold plating on the FingerPhone. I also
discovered that I could change the loudness of individual notes by
pressing firmly or lightly on the touch surface. That old prototype did
not have enough sensitivity to be musically useful, which is why I
developed the maze pattern for the touchboard of this instrument.
I dubbed it the "FingerPhone" because your fingers are all that are needed to make it
sound.
Because chords can be formed and shifted comfortably, learning about
harmony and improvising harmony is accelerated using the FingerPhone.
The FingerPhone is played with intuitive, familiar
gestures. Here are a few examples:
Single tones for a melody are made with a tap
Volume and tone quality
are changed by pressing harder on a key, or alternatively, by laying
more of a finger along a key segment.
Tremolo is done with a rocking
motion
Grace notes are done by stroking Chord voicing is done by
pinching
The unique sound of sliding a chord is a simple matter of
establishing the chord with the fingers and sliding the hand along the
surface.
A Touch of Gold
The FingerPhone surface you touch is real gold because:
Gold feels good to touch, and is not grabby or sticky like silicone
Gold
is durable, which makes it long lasting
Gold is washable and sanitized
with hand sanitizer or Isopropyl alcohol
