Lost Eaton-Moog Synth Keyboard

Interesting. Synthtopia has a post up on a Lost Eaton-Moog Synth Keyboard. They are asking if you know more about it, to contact them. I wonder how this compares to the Haken Continuum. I wonder if John Eaton knows about it.

"Composer John Eaton is waiting for someone to develop a "lost" instrument, the Eaton-Moog Multiple-Touch-Sensitive Keyboard. The keyboard design was a collaboration between Eaton and Robert Moog, and features keys with enhanced capabilities, enabling new methods of touch control of synthesizers.

The [device] is "the world's most sensitive musical instrument next to the human voice," according to Eaton. "Playing it is a kind of combination of playing a a very sensitive stringed instrument and playing a keyboard instrument."

The keys on the 49-note keybaord respond to five motions: the distance a key is depressed; the finger's front and back position and motion on each key; the finger's side-to-side position and motion on each key; the total area a flattened finger covers on each key; and pressure on a key after it is depressed fully.

These five, fully independent controls send signals in digital streams of numbers to a computer, which routes the signals to affect any possible aspect of musical continuity desired--loudness; vibrato; tremolo; reverb; tone color or instrumental change; the speed, pitch, and any other application that can be dealt with by a modern sound synthesizer or sound-generating computer program.

The prototype now lives in Eaton's attic, according to an article in the NJ State Ledger."