Background: The Idea Of The Persephone

Keyboards have become a masterpiece for controlling synthesizers. But the supremacy of keyboard interfaces has not always been so in the history of synthesizers making... Let's go back to these others tries which are now part of our cabinets of curiosities...

Since the earliest age of electronics and the creation of the first electronic oscillators, scientists have been aware of the potential of electronics for generating sounds and many of them have tried to create electronic musical instruments with more or less success. The introduction of filters and VCA soon enabled tremolos and vibratos which could recreate the musicality of classical instruments. And in a way to control these parameters, these new instruments opened the field of the research for new controls beyond the possibilities that a generic keyboard could offer. The fact that most of the non-keyboard instruments using new controllers required a new play explains why they remained unpopular with musicians who had little time to practice on unusual keyboard, the Telharmonium 36-note-per-octave keyboard designed by Cahill for example. Some others, like Theremin, created classes where their new instruments would be taught.
The 1920s remains the most fertile years for the evolution of electronic music instruments with invention of new controls like dial-operated non keyboard electronic instruments or ribbon controlled instruments. In Russia, Lev Sergeivitch Termen developed the Theremin and created the first fingerboard cellos. In France and in Germany, a whole family of dial-operated non keyboard electronic instruments was developed. Among them, René Bertrand and Edgard Varèse's Dynaphone or Jörg Mager's Electrophon and Spharaphon.
At the end of the 1920s, the fingerboards - or ribbon controllers - were to appear with Les Ondes Martenot designed by the French Maurice Martenot that included both a seven-octave keyboard and a ribbon controller that allowed pitch inflections like a voice or stringed instrument.
 
  Peter Lertes and Bruno Helberger, developed the Hellertion, also one of the first electronic instruments to use a fingerboard continuous controller instead of a keyboard.
But the Trautonium was the first instrument to ally position and pressure control. Created in 1931 by Franz Trauntwein, the Trautonium used filters to modify the timber of the note and a keyboard, just like Les Ondes Martenot. The "Sonar", developed by N. Anan'yev in the USSR from 1930 also had a fingerboard continuous controller to vary the pitch of the oscillator. A fter the 40s, the general use of keyboards (and the war) slew down the research of new types of controls. Ribbon controllers were back in the 1960s with Moog ribbon controllers which Keith Emerson was famous for attaching to a pyrotechnics control. The Theremin-like sound in the Beach Boys' song "Good Vibrations," was played by a ribbon-controlled instrument called the Electro-Theremin which the Beach Boys have later replaced by a Moog ribbon controller with a Moog synthesizer in live performances.

Between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, several different types of non-keyboard synthesizer controllers were developed; in particular percussion, guitar and wind. Only a few synthesizers from the 1980s had other type of controls: the Yamaha CS80 's ribbon controller, which unlike pitch-bend wheels and the Moog ribbon controller design, has no centre position. Kurzweil also included ribbon control to their synths, the Korg Prophecy as well. Some more controllers have been designed in the 1980s, but remained very uncommon. Michel Waisvisz developed The Hands, during the early 1980s at STEIM in Amsterdam.  

The 2000s offered new possibilities with the development of sensor technology and new computer controls while the development of powerful flexible sensor interfaces like the eobody developed by eowave/Ircam was opening the limits of controls... And this new taste for other sorts of control has entered the world of electronic music with controllers like the Kaos Pad or tactile surface controllers.

 

From the Idea To the First Steps: A choice of technology

We decided to work on a contemporary version of a fingerboard instrument, using the newest controls today's technology would bring but preserving the best of analogue sound generators. The Persephone reminds of the first electronic instruments. It is made of noble woods with its wenge exotic wood expression key, its birch table and its oak wooden sides. Beyond this vintage look, the Persephone allies sensors technology and digital controls to a pure analogue generation of sound. With its analogue oscillator, the Persephone can generate notes with a range of 10 octaves, which goes from a deep and resonant cello tone to a nearly human voice. And on the highest pitches, it can reach very high frequencies. The oscillator waveform can be set between triangle and sawtooth for a more or less brilliant sound. Its ribbon virtual control surface requires the most advanced sensor technology and allows all kind of glissando a Theremin or les Ondes Martenot would allow, though the sensored ribbon is much more precise than the tube full of graphite used as a variable resistance in the Trautonium. A scaling potentiometer allows scaling the Persephone's ribbon from 1, 2, 5 to 10 octaves. The expression key, controlled by an optic sensor can transmit the slightest vibrations on the key with an accuracy the mechanical systems never had. All the controls are digital. The four play modes - A, B, C and D - offer different hierarchy of control between the pitch, the velocity, a filter modulation and a LFO.

The first prototype has been presented in January 2004 at the Winter NAMM Show in Los Angeles and in April 2004 at the Frankfurt Musik Messe. Two years later, the final version is released with many improvements and new functionalities, like MIDI in & out, full tone and half tone modes... The design has also been improved allowing a full accessibility to the front panel. The buttons are on the left side of the front panel, directly accessible with the left hand, while the right hand can keep playing. Connections are located on the rear side of the front panel and protected from dust and other source of deterioration by the Persephone suitcase top when closed. Two versions of the instrument are released: a desktop version and a suitcase version (classic or punk-rock version, more coloured).

Just like on a Theremin, the way the Persephone is played will create the instrument personality. The Persephone follows the traditional play of the first non-keyboard electronic instruments with the right hand controlling the pitch and the left hand controlling the velocity. The ribbon zone size can allow all kinds of play. When scaled, the Persephone can be played like a regular keyboard. Though there are no fixed preset notes on the ribbon, keyboard players will easily find their way. Nevertheless, it is possible to add some reference marks noted on a strip of white tape. (In this case, only use alcohol to remove the glue of the tape). Guitars and bass players will certainly play it like a chord instrument and get sounds that are closed to cello or violin, especially when using vibratos. Jazz players will enjoy slapping the Persephone's ribbon to get wonderful sonorities.