Hey guys,
A quick intro of who I am:
I'm a Sound Design student at Savannah College of Art and Design. Currently this quarter I'm taking the "Sound in Media" class, (essentially the history of sound) and a few days ago we watched an excellent Doc on the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, You can watch this Documentary on youtube here.
In the doc I noticed that most of the audio faders (essentially a potentiometer) they were using were in an arc formation. As if the fader knob was attached to a rotary pot, instead of using a linear pot. That got me thinking...
As an sound designer, I'll be mostly using Pro Tools for manipulating sound. And one of the quintessential tools used for mixing sound is the motor fader. A motor fader is a linear pot (usually used with midi, or some other automation protocol) with a servo or motor attached to it. This gives the fader the ability to move according to recorded automation. Ultimately this means the audio mixer can tweak automation in real time without have the automation jump to whatever the pot was set to previously. Unfortunately motor faders can be very expensive, individual replacement motor faders can often cost $60+ each, and most fader banks are 8-16 faders per unit.
So here's my idea, instead of using cost-prohibitive commercial motor-faders, why not use rotary servos with the (apparently) classic arc fader design. My current problem is that most RC hobby servos use a PWM signal to control them, and the internal potentiometer is used for internal feedback. For this to work I need to be able to tap into the resistive values of the pot, while the servo is moving, and use those values to control the faders within Pro Tools. Then the automation data feedback sent from Pro Tools can control the faders position. I'm thinking of a capacitive sensor on a metal fader knob to deactivate the servo motor so you can move it freely.
Essentially, is it possible to modify an RC hobby servo so one could measure the resistive values of the internal potentiometer?
I'm away at school at the moment, so I won't be able to work on this for another couple of weeks, but I figured I'd knock out a few kinks in my idea before I start tinkering.
[EDIT] I scrubbed through the doc on youtube and found the shot of the arc faders here: http://youtu.be/t9M9k4JnqCk?t=7m6s
