For this book, we wanted to address a topic that drives our design approach and that is really central to the state of music creation today: the relationship between human action and sound creation. This may sound abstract, but with the widespread and growing use of electronic instruments in both production and live performance, we wonder: How and why have keyboards, knobs, pedals and buttons become our primary means of performing with electronic sounds? Whether you’re using keyboard synths, MPCs, V-Drums or any other MIDI controller, you’re pushing buttons, twisting knobs and adjusting sliders, which, compared with our rich history of acoustic instrument practices, is more like operating machinery than playing music.