Touchscreens are often compared to the ground-breaking – if imaginary – designs of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But Brazilian Paulo Egidio Silva must be a real Trekker. His elaborate touchscreen panel configuration really looks like the LCARS
computer system simulated on the TV show.

Of course, that isn’t to say this isn’t a practical system. By making extensive use of the MIDI SDK for Cubase, the Dragon MIDI rig controls every element of a Cubase session, from mixing to routing to adjusting plug-in parameters. It actually has three elements:

1. A multi-screen touchscreen for selecting mix and send settings and changing routings
2. A conventional motorized control surface (the Yamaha 01V96) for mixing on real faders
3. A hybrid of screen and physical gear, by which plug-in instruments get both an interactive screen and physical encoders

If Geordi LaForge happens to be your mix engineer, you’ll be ready. Here’s my understanding of how it breaks down. (I couldn’t find additional documentation beyond the video, so Paulo, if you’re out there, we’d love to hear from you!)

Touchscreen Panel: 16-strip mixer, controlling up to 128 tracks. The idea is to use the motorized mixer for physical mixer control, but jump between and record-arm tracks, sends, and the like using the touchscreen.

Virtual patch points: An additional screen provides sends and buses and a virtual patch bay for connecting them.

Panning: A graphical display lets you select pan position – apparently stereo only for now, but surround would be an obvious application.

Windows, shortcuts, zoom, etc.: Button shortcuts along the side of the screen and zoom encoders let you easily navigate your set and zoom around.

Screen with actual physical controllers: Plug-in parameters are mapped to a screen that has physical controllers on it. You see the parameters and position on the screen, but you actually tweak a real encoder. Look about four minutes into the video — the effect is really striking.

Special Liquid Mix shortcuts: The appeal of Focusrite’s Liquid Mix is virtualizing beloved vintage gear. But these guys take it quite a few steps further, with shortcut screens decorated with photos of the real gear.

A big thanks to Primus Luta (via Twitter) for finding this!

As seen on the SOUND ON SOUND forums.

Side note: just to illustrate how incredible the fake computer displays on the 1980s Star Trek series were, the “touch displays” were originally just backlit Plexiglass. And I think that, in turn, illustrates the value of doing design in the physical world before the virtual one – if they hadn’t had to work as real-world lighting displays before being translated to virtual animations, they might not have been as distinctive. Michael Okuda, the LCARS designer, likely had no idea he would influence later thinking about how real, functional touchscreens could work.

Update: Interview, specs, photos on Paulo’s studio (translated from Portuguese)

Keyboard Magazine, I have a challenge for you:

I think this solo desperately wants a Keyboard transcription. You know, “Play like Sun Ra.” It may require a larger insert, but maybe it could be sponsored by Yamaha or something.

Okay, granted, Earthlings might argue that this sounds chaotic, but on Sun Ra’s native planet Jupiter, this actually borders on the pedestrian. It’s pretty conventional 83-fingered hyperlocramixydixylycradidian mode, transposed here to what is apparently a Yamaha YC-30. Sun Ra even makes a nod to the fact that the Jupiterians’ torso typically rotates at increasing speed during live performances, as an especially “grupicosmilogical” solo causes their arms to detach.

What?

You want me to do the transcription?

Due when?

SUN RA – Live – Keyboard Solo (1980) [Matrixsynth]

In all seriousness, this just happened to coincide with listening to some Sun Ra records this weekend … if you don’t know his music, take some time to listen to it. YouTube excerpts with bad sound could easily give you the wrong idea. The ability to order a certain amount of entropy into larger forms that really are connected with the jazz tradition is amazing. And for those of you running boring, equal-measured loops in Ableton, spend some time with the polyrhythms. Sun Ra does have good stuff to teach. And it makes me look forward to Yuri’s Night in April all the more — Sun Ra is the artist who really went to space, and brought us back some music. Who needs Virgin Galactic?

Giving all the credit to Ron Grainer seems a little unfair; while Grainer composed the melody, most of the features of the Doctor Who theme itself were in fact the work of gifted pioneer Delia Derbyshire. Whereas Howell could actually play parts live, Derbyshire had a much harder task: painstakingly piecing the sounds out of repeat passes of tape, with only the simplest test tone generators and processors to produce sounds. Ironically, I think there was a far greater gap in the way synthesizer sounds were produced between 1963 and 1980 than 1980 and 2007, even if Howell brags about a “very modern synthesizer” that can play “8 notes at a time.” It’s cheaper now, but programming most synth patches hasn’t changed in the least. In fact, the CS-80 had more accessible hardware for programming, and never had to contend with OS X updates. Out of tune slightly? Erm, yes … but that’s cool, right? (Better add that to your software emulation. I’ll make no argument for superiority of value or weight. And I’ll make myself feel better by routing through some digital effects.)

See my two year-old roundup, though many of the sound links are now broken:
Doctor Who Theme: Behind the Scenes, Hear the Themes