Got my A-198 Ribbon controller today. We just finished messing
around together for the first time. I'm smoking a cigarette.

THIS THING ROCKS!!!!!!

Run to the bank, sell something if you have to, just don't steal -
but do anything you need to get one of these. It's amazing.

Listen, I'm no Lucky Man (in more ways than one). But what I'm
getting at is I wouldn't use a ribbon controller in the same way
Keith Emerson used his. But I would much the same way Mort
did and for the first time in 27 years, I'm able to - and it feels
GREAT because it's giving me a real physical connection
between me and the machine. The whole MAN MACHINE thing
has leapt a paradisgm in a big hurry.

Picture this:

the standard 'Peter Grenader' percussive phrase - made up of a
'thumpy' short envelope which is driven by a trigger generator.

Got it

OK - I've got the trigger driving the EG into an AND gate. I've got
the gate output of the 198 on the other input of the AND gate so
that pulses will only pass while the unit senses contact onto the
fingerboard.

I've got the non-pressure voltage out panning the sound across
the stereo field and also into a sample and hold which is
controlling the pitch of the VCO used in the patch. That S+H is
being triggered by the output of the AND gate as well.

Finally, I've got the pressure output of the 198 controlling the
speed of the trigger generator that's driving the whole mess.

What I really appreciate about this system is it responds to all
sorts of actions that I am completely in control of. Instantanious
feedback to complex control patterns which affords a whole hell
of a lot of experession that possibily aren't generally associated
with a ribbon controller.

I'll do some ssamples later onm and give you all a link. In the
meanwhile, don't wait for this --> just trust me and order one of
these things.

- P