Finger controlled motion with tiny mercury switch

[jjj]

Audio volume of a Synth can be easily controlled via LDR-LED (Morley Vol pedal), but I prefer to control the Vol via lateral/ horizontal hand movements to create Vol and tremolo variations.
I discovered that there exist a $200+ gadget, called "Hot Hand 3", but I think the same effect can be achieved more economically:

How about using a tiny mercury glass switch, found in Chinese "Driver Anti-Sleep" devices, here: **broken link removed** I have a couple of these. Of course, they only turn on and off, but at least the liquid mercury allows me to shake-switch and so, vary the turn on & turn off events via lateral hand movements.
Of course the volume should not just abruptly turn on or off, but rather trigger varied, smooth volume swings.
I'm thinking of a simple circuit, based on an electrolytic, which softens and briefly delays the mercury switch's turn on and turn off events.?

That way I could build it into a tiny box and attach it to a ring on my finger.
This would allow me to rapidly shake the mercury switch horizontally and thus, create the desired volume and tremolo variations.[/u]

 

[Reloadron]

While far from a musician or musical device (effects) guru I got to thinking about your post. Yes, for all purposes a small mercury switch is just that, a single pole single throw switch, an On-Off switch. However, there are also SPDT (Single Pole Double Throw) versions which then become On-Off-On switches. All that is well and fine.

You might want to think about another device like what is called an Accelerometer. Using an accelerometer would give you two or three axis control and also the benefit of an analog output or actually several analog outputs. Like a small mercury switch these devices are also in a very small package. I believe HP (Hewlette Packard) has actually done some musical tricks using them. A Google of "accelerometer circuit" will bring up some results. You may want to read a little about these little devices. Give this link a read and in there you will find a link to DJammer: a New Digital, Mobile, Virtual, Personal Musical Instrument which goes back to HP. They come in analog as well as digital outputs but I can't help but think that something along these lines may suit your needs better than a simple mercury switch. They are also pretty inexpensive devices depending on what flavors you may want. Also, I can't get your link to work.

Anyway, just something to consider.

Ron

 

[alec_t]

You could perhaps make a small LDR-LED device with a pendulum-actuated or slider-actuated shade between the LDR and the LED.

 

[jjj]

ADXL335 is what I am looking at... now!!

 

[Reloadron]

Pretty nice little accelerometer. I would think you can get some interesting results.

Ron

 

[dr pepper]

The commercial version may well be a sort of theramine, hand capacitance giving you the output voltage through rf circuits.

You'll need some amplification on the accelerometer, depending on what sort of voltage your synth needs, probably 0 - 5v or 0 - 10v or soemthing like that.