Knobcon in Chicago

Again, this year was a blast.  It was great to see old friends and meet new faces.

I presented a concept this year called 'Sample Proof'.  It has to do with my philosophy and ideas behind some of the musical instruments that I build.  

I have been working on several instrument concepts and the one that I presented was what I am calling 'Sample Restraint #1'.

Sample Restraint #1 (AKA Sample Proof Instrument #1) is a one-off instrument that I have been developing for a few years, working on it as I have time or inspiration.  It is loosely based on the Hammond tonewheel concept, but uses fast spinning BB's  to generate the waveforms.  Because the BB's can group in arbitrary clusters, the resultant waveform is arbitrary and each note of the scale has this arbitrary timbre.  The control keyboard works on displacement, rather than velocity or aftertouch, and has a feature that will change volume and tone depending on the amount the key is displaced.  One of the many 'Sample Proof' concepts about this instrument is that every time it is turned on and goes into motion, there is a completely new set of waveforms and therefore can't be easily sampled because of its mechanical complexity and arbitrary nature.