The audio interface
David Bristow · Contemporary Music Review · 1991
This essay is concerned with the idea that “dtimbral behaviour” is as much a part of the identity of an instrument as is the timbre itself. The nature and importance of the interface between daudio-feedback (particularly the role of timbral behaviour) and dartistic gesture is examined against the historical background of the authors involvement in the development and introduction of one of the major electronic musical instruments of recent years, the DX7 FM synthesiser. Starting from an early intuitive and naive attraction to the “dvelocity sensitivity” parameter and the dBC1 breath controller, an attempt is made to apply some understanding by the examination of FM as a tool for timbral modeling and the special role of the dmodulation index. More generalised issues surrounding the idea of timbral behaviour are then developed which relate to the interface between timbral behaviour and instrumental artistic gesture, (pitch and effort), and which can be applied both to today's electronic music and the manufacture of today's electronic musical instruments.