Touchstrips offer space-saving continuous control with unipolar, bipolar, stepped, and pressure-sensitive modes

A touchstrip is a strip-shaped interface element with no moving parts that can be slid along to control a parameter. It saves panel space and allows instant jumps to any position (unlike a fader which must traverse all intermediate values). Touchstrips appear on synthesizers, Eurorack modules, and DJ controllers. They have four operational modes: Unipolar (full range from one end to the other, base value at one end); Bipolar (centered at zero, with a dead zone so zero is easily achieved); Stepped (divided into discrete note or function areas like buttons); Pressure-sensitive (an additional modulation dimension). Some instruments use arrays of touchstrips for simultaneous multi-parameter control (e.g., Native Instruments Maschine Jam with four fingers per hand across eight strips).

Examples

Komplete Kontrol keyboard: two touchstrips as pitch bend (bipolar, snaps to center) and modulation (unipolar). Intellijel Tetrapad: four pressure-sensitive Eurorack touchstrips outputting CV and notes. Pioneer Toraiz AS-1: seven parameters modified simultaneously.

Assessment

Name all four touchstrip modes and explain how the bipolar mode handles the zero-value problem. Contrast a touchstrip with a conventional fader for the scenario of jumping to a parameter value while the instrument is playing.