[Plautus001]

bcowen had Paladin79 beat...

Paladin79 wins

 

[macdonjh]

I think you should start an advice column:

"Dear Dr. Paladin79: Last weekend I bought a pair of really huge and super cool looking speakers from a guy in a white van in the Wal Mart parking lot. They sounded totally awesome for a couple minutes, but then a cone went flying out of one of them and the other caught fire. Can they be fixed?" -- dejected in TX

I see what you did there. I don't like it, but I see it.

 

[White Noise]

I also wonder how much it would complicate production if one were to CNC a 300º 0.5 to 1.0mm wide arc into the top shell around the volume knob. With a custom-made light pipe behind it the ten LEDs could "fill" that arc from left to right according to the currently set volume. Kind of like a progress bar, but in the shape of a 300º arc around the volume knob. (Ten CNC-drilled holes around the knob would do as well, but a continuous arc might potentially look better and/or might be easier to see from a distance because more light can pass through the slit than through a hole.)
.....

Weird that motorized pots that small don't exist off the shelf, I always prefer the simplest solution over something as complicated as all of the above.

So actually, I've seen both of these done in the synth world, but none of the synths that implement these are cheap synths. They're all trying to solve pretty much the same problem - the problem we've had with synthesizers since the first ones with patch memory came out in the 70s. That problem is that when you recall a patch, the settings on the synthesizer no longer match the positions of the knobs/sliders that you actually use to control said parameters (sounds like a familiar problem...). This means that you cannot tell what sound the synth is going to make by looking at it, you have to use your ears (which isn't the worst idea but there are times when you'd just like to know that what you're looking at is correct). The past few years have seen a few new players try new ideas.

First up in led light ring world we have the ASM hydrasynth, which uses individually visible LEDs around endless encoders to show the relative positions of various parameters visually. Load a new pacth and for all 8 knobs flanking the screen you can see where they are. Unfortunately, you only get 8 knobs flanking the screen, you're using the buttons on the bottom left to jump between modules and then further paging up and down inside of modules to actually get to all the parameters. But for the 8 you have at a time you know exactly what's going on.

Next up in much more expensive motorized pots world, we have the Melbourne Instruments Nina. No LED tricks here, every time you load a patch the pots all jump to their saved positions. You can even morph between patches by moving all the pots between two saved states. Furthermore, the motors can even be used to change the feedback the knobs give you - for instance there's only one knob for tuning, but synths usually have coarse and fine tuning. Coarse tuning is used to shift an oscilator up/down by whole semitones at a time, for if you want to program musical intervals into your sound, while fine tuning is used for smaller adjustments of just a few cents at a time. Well, in coarse tuning mode that pot jumps between 12 discrete positions with resistance in between, while in fine tuning it spins freely but with a much more limited tuning range. I think Melbourne Instruments is currently custom making these pots, but I know for sure they're using drone quadcopter motors. According to them, that's the only thing that was small and cheap enough to make this possible. I'm dropping a picture here for reference but it's well worth looking up a video demo and seeing this thing in action, it's a sight to behold.

 

[45longcolt]

A little Sunday morning nostalgia...

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Car buffs deserve a little nostalgia, too...

JC

 

[bcowen]

And for the record lovers....

 

[OldRoadToad]

Car buffs deserve a little nostalgia, too...



JC

Talk about a naughty double entendre?!

ORT

 

[StimpyWan]

And for the record lovers....

So that's how you started record collecting...! I bet you picked Perry Como first...?

 

[OldRoadToad]

So that's how you started record collecting...! I bet you picked Perry Como first...?

Cardboard 45s were all the rage, trust me on this.

ORT

 

[JLoud]

I remember those. You could watch the tone arm go up and down because the “record “ was so warped. Good times!

 

[bcowen]

Cardboard 45s were all the rage, trust me on this.

ORT

They were obviously way ahead of their times.

 

[Runrunsmithfly]

Perfect for New Mexico!

Christmas as it's called when you have both red and green. I miss New Mexican food, born there and lived there off and on for the past 70 years.

 

[artur9]

I think you should start an advice column:

...

Dear Dr Paladin79
Last week I bought a single LP at a yard sale but my turntable refuses to play it. Seems like the silver coating is causing trouble? Please help, tortured in TX....

 

[artur9]

Car buffs deserve a little nostalgia, too...



JC

That can't be real.

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

That can't be real.

AFAIK it is. Ads were a lot different in the 40s and 50s than they are today.

JC