Ribbon controller

A ribbon controller is a tactile sensor used to control synthesizers. It generally consists of a resistive strip that acts as a potentiometer. Because of its continuous control, ribbon controllers are often used to produce glissando effects.

A musician using a ribbon controller to control an analog modular synthesizer

A Doepfer A-198 ribbon controller, with its associated eurorack control module

Early examples of the use of ribbon controllers in a musical instrument are in the Ondes Martenot and Trautonium. In some early instruments, the slider of the potentiometer was worn as a ring by the player. In later ribbon controllers, the ring was replaced by a conductive layer that covered the resistive element.

Ribbon controllers are found in early Moog synthesizers, but were omitted from most later synthesizers.^[1] The Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer is well-known for its inclusion of a ribbon controller, used by Vangelis to create many of the characteristic sounds in the Blade Runner soundtrack.^[2]

Although ribbon controllers are less common in analog later synthesizers, they were used in the Moog Liberation and Micromoog.

There was a resurgence of ribbon controllers on synthesizers in the mid-1990s, beginning with Korg's physical and analog modeling performance synthesizer Prophecy (1995), incorporating a unique pressure/position ribbon mounted on a modulation wheel ("log"), and their Trinity (1995) workstation (which could accommodate a Prophecy counterpart SOLO-TRI option board), as well as Kurzweil's K2500-series workstations (keyboard versions, 1996), which incorporated both a 4-inch pressure/position ribbon and a separate 600mm-long position ribbon programmable into multiple zones. Roland incorporated a ribbon controller in their JP-8000 (1996) synthesizer.

As of 2020^[update], ribbon controllers are available as control voltage and MIDI peripherals. An example of a modern synthesizer that uses a ribbon controller is the Swarmatron.

Later in 2010/2011, Korg released a series of minisynths called Monotron using the ribbon controller, it became so popular that it still in production in 2023.

References

1. "Ribbon Controller | Sweetwater". inSync. 2004-07-09. Retrieved 2020-09-12.
2. "A photographic journey inside the mighty Yamaha CS-80 polyphonic synthesizer". secretlifeofsynthesizers.com. Retrieved 2020-09-12.