Can someone point me to a page and/or book for the synthlink in SR4?

Don't think it exists anymore.

Same with different Datajack and Control Jack, they have been merged into one. I suppose the Synthlink is similarily redundant.

Bye
Thanee

Odd. I was just reading SRA and the flavour text mentions it, so I just thought I was blind for not seeing it...

Hmm... I havn't seen it yet... that, of course, is hardly proof that it isn't there.

Bye
Thanee

That's a flavour/historical note. Just assume that they're a miscellaneous device with an arbitrarium cost that you can control in the same way as all peripherals - access it wirelessly or through whatever physical connection you care to mention. Alternatively, the same functionality may be part of an Edit program. Increasing ratings mean it's more fully featured, etc.

it's probably some (negligible cost) software that you can run on your datajack, really. or even trodes, i suppose.

Hmm... rigging your Electric Guitar... does the Control Rig give you +2 dice for that?
But seriously, I don't remember how the synthlink suppose to work. If it lets you directly interface with a musical instrument then a datjack is built to do exactly that - Direct Neural Interface with whatever equipment you connect it to. And most of the decent musical instruments in 2072 probably have a jack for it.
While you may not get a bonus for DNI think of how easy you can hit the effects pedals! Man, mine bass effects have over 100 preprogrammed effects. Being able to switch that as a free action to which ever effect I wanted would, well, rock! Hell, may even make up for my RSI issues that prevent me from playing these days. Damn, I need a datajack IRL.

The Synthlink is actually detaileds in the SR1 Book Shadowbeat...

It let you actually control devices for playback... Kind of like drones, so to speak...

Keep the Faith

I suppose I better see if I can find my copy of Shadowbeat, then...

I always thought, from the SR4 fluff, a synthlink was something that you added to the instrument that let it be controlled by DNI, whether that was a datajack or trodes or anything. Sort of like a rigger adaptation for musical instruments.

Sounds like, if you posit that your instrument is a drone with a pilot score of 0, you can just pay for a rigger adaptation and have the same effect. I mean everything in SR4 is a drone anyway, why not my drum kit?

Because a drum kits needs servo arms that beat the drumsticks against the various instruments. And that adaptation, plus the hadware and software to move the arms, could be costly.
From what I got from the SR4 fluff, it is a piece of hardware that translates your thoughts into music - just imagine a song, and the synthlink plays it for you. No need to have actual instruments, the synthlink produces the music. I don't even think it needs to be hardware by the 2070s.
It also says you don't even need to know how to read music sheets, so unless you want to argue that a synthlink comprises a musical skillsoft, it is not like rigging, becuase even if rigging you would still not know how to play a drum (and I think there is no way to rig a guitar - you would probably need a complete cyberhand for the chords, and maybe for the pick too, and then something to move both.)

Actually, any instrument could be adapted to play itself without robot hands/arms, you just need to replace the moving part that makes the sound with myomeric fibres. Guitar strings and drum pads that make themselves vibrate. You could tell a flute to go blow itself

All Right....



So... Essentially they are an interface system (much like a control deck for Riggers) that is used to interface with musical instruments, Amps, Synthesizers and Speakers that have the modifications (Rigger Adaptation) required for the interface.

You could use the relevant equipment listed to mimic a synthlink, or you could use the technology from SR1, the end result would be the same in the end...

Keep the Faith

Actually, it doesn't say anything about instruments, it talks only about synthesizers, and later of amps and speakers. And synthesizers can reproduce the sound made by instruments. If you want to see it the other way, ok, but I'm not reading what you've read.

Instruments = Synths in 2072? If you could jack straight into a synth and imagine what you want to play and it creates the audio why use old fashion instruments? Sure, street cred, but I know from experience that actual mastery of an instrument is hard work. Using the right software suites today you can create a whole song. If you were jacked into those suites? Wow. Everyone would be a musician.

I would just go with a sim rig and a commlink with either edit or a special common use synth program to replace synthlinks.
Translate the performers mental commands and emotional state into a unique work of art.

Even today programs allow anyone to become a musician, but it takes a real artist to make something worth listening to. Break up artisan into various art skills, and have specializations for particular instruments and a spec. for virtual performance.
Make special synth programs too, either a general synth or ones specialized in particular instruments.


I'm going to have to find my shadowbeat book now, I liked the stuff it covered.

I wouldn't enforce this as the norm. I think special music software and a datajack would work fine. I do think it's a great idea, Neowulf. Possibly hard to master but the audience would be very connected with the musician.

By the way, did anyone see the Youtube video of the violin playing robot? I think Toyota made it. Now imagine a group of riggers running an orchestra. Pretty sweet stuff....

In Shadowbeat, they discuss this... And Synthesizers are Instruments...

Keep the Faith