On Mon, 9 May 2011 07:08:18 -0400 Billy Stiltner billy.stiltner@gmail.com wrote:
Now imagine a whammy bar fixed with the smoothest bearings and axle known. Now imagine the atomic structure of the axle and bearing. Isn't the whammy bar going to stop at little steps at the flat spots where any 2 atoms of the bearings line up with any 2 atoms of the axle? Would this not be discrete.
If the whammy was long, a finite, discrete change of angle would make the end of the bar move several inches. Since it could not exist in any position between two discrete angles the end would have to move instantaneously (infinite velocity) between two positions in space.
This would lead to sore fingers.
Whatever the model you'll get a Kantian muddle. A (phenomenon) "out there", and its corresponding notion (noumenon) inhabit different worlds, and through that dark glass entirely discrete or continuous models are quite as absurd as each other with a moment of thought. Talking of moments, what's good for space is good for time right? The symbols on the paper and the patterns in your mind are tools, predictive utilities with more or less ability to predict the behaviour of a third, ineffable thing. Einstein, Podolski and Rosen took a lot of symbols, and Mr.Heidegger had to chop a lot of Black Forest wood to say what George Carlin does so brilliantly in a short sketch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M5eG-aywZQ
On the topic of CVs; Many devices in the 1990s used hybrid technology in the overlap of analogue and digital ages. Digitally controlled oscillators were common for a while. But that is little known developmental history, most people would not use the term "control voltage" in the context of a digital synth. Maybe they would say "control signal", to delineate its function, but not "voltage".