Tactile display in electronic musical instruments

Unlike acoustical instruments, electronic musical instruments display a synthetic sound source, which in fact can only be heard and not felt. Tactually displaying attributes of the sound (e.g., pitch, volume envelope, timbre) enables the performer to improve muscular control. Several technologies for enhancing tactual display of the sound source, as well as ways of control will be described. For example, input devices such as gloves and gesture trackers and other technologies were adapted from virtual reality research. These developments led to the realisation that the link between sound source and its “feel” was missing. For instance, a sharp sound should have a clearly tangible threshold, and a dull sound a more soft feel