The Hots for the HOTZ

Tim Conrardy reviews a unique software and MIDI controller made by Atari itself!

In the late 1980s a certain Jimmy Hotz (pronounced, "hots") was making the rounds in the music industry by introducing musicians to the wonders of MIDI, and in particular Atari computers. Fleetwood Mac, members of Yes and Tangerine Dream as well as BB King and the Pointer Sisters were just a few of his clients. However, he had an idea in his head that evolved into what is now called Translator Technology. From this initial idea came software and also a special hardware controller called the Hotz Box which ran in tandem with the software. Tom Bajoras (then a Hybrid Arts programmer) did the actual coding, while the concept, scale creations and programming was done by Jimmy Hotz.

Eventually, the Hotz Corporation was formed and is presently called Accordance Music Systems, in which the Translator Technology is continuing to evolve (see the links section).

Translator Concept
The concept is you can layer the keyboard into zones. One zone controls chords that you can assign to any key in the "lower" part of the keyboard. So all you have to do is use one finger to trigger the chord. Normally on the Hotz Box, this would be a pad you trigger.

The "upper" zone is for scales, of which you have 128 to choose from. Whatever chords you trigger in the lower keyboard, you will be in perfect tune to it when playing the upper part. So you could literally play like a virtuoso. You could play a pattern in the upper part, switch chords on the lower and the pattern is transposed to the same key as the chord. You could call it an "expert system" as Laurie Spiegel would say. You can basically play in any key just by changing your chord. It takes a bit of re-thinking on what you are playing. However, the results can be very rewarding.

I also use the Translator to process the "left hand" applications. For example, running Music Mouse, M or Tunesmith through it for some interesting results. With Music Mouse, it gives me 128 more scales to play the mouse with instead of the 8 or so scales within Music Mouse itself.

The Hotz Box

As mentioned Atari manufactured a special MIDI controller which worked in tandem with the Hotz MIDI translator software. You can see the keys are flat membrane pads in the photo above. One has a "regular" piano keyboard layout with other pads going horizontally and vertically. The side set of pads are usually used to trigger chords which in turn the other horizontal layouts are used to generate scales in tune with the chords. These areas are called "zones" which can be represented on a piano-style MIDI controller as well.

Given the nature of the controller with no moving parts you can perform lightning fast movements that would be near-impossible on a regular keyboard. The unit is extremely fast, with 10 parallel processors collecting and merging the data that you are playing on the keyboard. Having been given the opportunity to try it out myself, I have found the Hotz Box very satisfying to my playing style. You do not need to hammer the keys but can press very lightly as it is still very touch sensitive. I also find it easy to play percussively, as they feel like drum machine pads as well, and can also be used to play percussion voices very effectively. It is also easy to accomplish strumming techniques. When used with an acoustic guitar or dulcimer sound, the strumming effect can be very realistic. Using a sustain pedal together with the strumming technique can create beautiful effects that have to be heard to be appreciated.