Touch Controller Audio Modulation via Gesture Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current user interfaces, particularly music controllers, are complex and costly to manufacture due to the need for multiple interactive elements to achieve nuanced audio signal control, and they limit user input to discrete commands, making it difficult to produce complex musical effects with a simple user experience.
Innovation Solution
A touch-sensitive interface that allows direct control over audio signal attributes through single or multiple touch inputs, enabling modulation of sound properties without additional interactive elements, using a combination of pressure sensors and a display for visual feedback, which can be connected to an output device for immediate feedback.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple interactive elements (switches, knobs, dials, sliders) are provided to enable nuanced audio signal control, then the control capability over audio attributes is improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies a universal touch-sensitive interface that can perform multiple functions through different touch patterns (single tap, double tap, slide, rotate, pinch). This single interface replaces the need for multiple specialized interactive elements (switches, knobs, dials, sliders), enabling nuanced audio control without increasing device complexity. The controller can detect and respond to various touch gestures to modulate different audio parameters, achieving multi-functionality with one unified interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces mechanical interactive elements (physical switches, knobs, dials, sliders) with a touch-sensitive interface that uses electrical sensing to detect user input. This substitution eliminates the need for complex mechanical mechanisms while maintaining and enhancing control capability. The touch-sensitive surface can detect position, pressure, and movement to control audio attributes, providing a simpler yet more versatile control system.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple interactive elements are provided to achieve nuanced audio signal control, then the control capability is improved, but the manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a single universal touch-sensitive interface that can perform multiple control functions through different touch patterns. This eliminates the need to manufacture and assemble multiple specialized components (switches, knobs, dials, sliders), significantly reducing manufacturing complexity and cost. The same hardware platform can serve different control purposes through software configuration of touch response patterns.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces complex mechanical interactive elements with a simplified touch-sensitive interface. This substitution reduces the number of physical components that need to be manufactured, assembled, and quality-checked, thereby lowering manufacturing costs. The electrical sensing system is simpler and more cost-effective to produce at scale compared to multiple mechanical subsystems.
3Ease of operation
If discrete switches are used to provide clear discrete inputs, then the input clarity is improved, but the ability to input quantitative or continuous information is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the touch interface dynamic by enabling it to respond to different types of user input (taps, slides, rotations, pinches) and automatically adapt its behavior. The system can detect the nature of the touch gesture and provide appropriate feedback, allowing both discrete and continuous control within a single interface. This dynamic response capability maintains input clarity while enabling quantitative and continuous information entry.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges the advantages of discrete switches and continuous action interfaces into a single unified touch-sensitive surface. The interface combines the clarity of discrete inputs (through defined touch patterns like taps) with the continuity of action inputs (through slides and rotations). This merging allows users to input both qualitative commands and quantitative adjustments through one interface, eliminating the trade-off between input clarity and continuous control capability.
Data Source
AI summary
The present method enables controlling of information data to be processed at an output device using a touch sensitive interface, the method comprising for an electronic device identifying a first touch input at a first location of the touch sensitive interface, retrieving first information data associated with the first location, the first information data being characterized by one or more attributes defining how said information data is rendered at the output device, producing for the output device a first output signal corresponding to the first information data, while detecting that the first touch input is maintained at the first location, identifying a second touch input at a second location distinct from the first location, and; producing for the output device a second output signal corresponding to an update of the first information data using at least one attribute correlated with the second location.