2014


Sonic Anxiety

Victoria Grace, Joel Chapman

Sonic Anxiety is an ironic twist on performance anxiety, where the performance is the sound of my anxiety while locked in a cage. Sensors track my breathing to control the harmony and timbre while my pulse sets the pace and drum rhythms of the piece.


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VeloKeys

Austin Whittier

Velokeys is a velocity-sensitive QWERTY keyboard for desktop jamming. Millions of people spend every day training their brains with a QWERTY key layout – at work, at school, and at home. This project is meant to meld the expressivity

VeloKeys


Multimidi

Gio Jacuzzi

Integrated controls of MIDI parameters using buttons mounted on knobs mounted on sliders mounted on LED-enhanced electronics mounted on acrylic.


String

Josh Coronado

String is controller used to generate waveforms, curves, and envelopes using a camera, coloured string, and Max/MSP. Users draw curves representing objects such as a filter envelope using coloured string. The coloured curve is then captured by a camera and deciphered into a digital curve to be rendered out to audio by Max/MSP.


The Processed Typewriter

Andrew Watts

For this project I am working towards a performance in the late spring during a residency with famed soprano Tony Arnold. Rather than a typical accompaniment for a solo soprano piece, like as a piano, I thought would be much more interesting and musically fertile to have her singing lyrics which are actively being typed in the background. Not only is the text being transformed into sound through the vocal line, but also the hammering away of the typewriter. With live processing the typewriter sound transforms from being static to being incredibly nuanced, allowing for a great deal of variation timbrally. The form is 32 microludes (short, but intense musical gestures lasting 12-30 seconds each). 32 preset sound presets, controls and settings already adjusted beforehand, provide the large scale shape between the microludes.


Tact

Caleb Rau

Tact is a project designed to make sound design and beat construction more intuitive. The instrument is a glove mounted with contact microphones that allows the wearer to record, transform and perform natural sounds at the touch of a finger. A wireless iPad interface provides the wearer with sound-shaping controls, playback effects and glove feedback. Amplify your interaction with the world via tactile sampling and contact playback with Tact. String is controller used to generate waveforms, curves, and envelopes using a camera, coloured string, and Max/MSP. Users draw curves representing objects such as a filter envelope using coloured string. The coloured curve is then captured by a camera and deciphered into a digital curve to be rendered out to audio by Max/MSP.


Tower of Power

Graham Davis, Connor Kelley

Tower of Power (ToP for short) is an interactive tower of wood that generates sound and sweet LED's. Inspired by the Hunchback of Notre Dame and 1970s funk, ToP is the auditory column for our generation. Tact is a project designed to make sound design and beat construction more intuitive. The instrument is a glove mounted with contact microphones that allows the wearer to record, transform and perform natural sounds at the touch of a finger. A wireless iPad interface provides the wearer with sound-shaping controls, playback effects and glove feedback. Amplify your interaction with the world via tactile sampling and contact playback with Tact. String is controller used to generate waveforms, curves, and envelopes using a camera, coloured string, and Max/MSP. Users draw curves representing objects such as a filter envelope using coloured string. The coloured curve is then captured by a camera and deciphered into a digital curve to be rendered out to audio by Max/MSP.


Electrocoustic JellyMuse

Byron Walker, Maria Malone, Jack Cook

The Electrocoustic Jellymuse is an interactive sound sculpture featuring a giant glowing, burbling jellyfish. You can play with it by touching the tentacles together, or pouring water on its head! Friendly and organic, the Jellymuse is fun for all ages.


Flex Effects

Holly Jachowski

Flex Effects is a glove designed for singers to easily and immediately apply effects to their vocals, for real-time output. Each finger controls the application of an effect. When the fingers are curled into a fist, each effect has minimal or no effect. When each finger is straightened, the associated effect is applied at a greater intensity.


Bass Guitar Pedal (BGP)

Michael Mendoza, Darrell Ford, Keanu Bellamy

Designed to create a music controller that can be effortlessly used by electric bass guitar players during a performance, the Bass Guitar Pedal will attempt to take advantage of the fact that electric bass guitar players do not use their feet during a performance. Using the BGP, the electric bass guitar player will be able to interact with various sliders, buttons, pedals, and light sensors to manipulate their live sounds while playing. The buttons, pedal, slider, and light sensors will modify reverb, echo and modulation effects, allowing the user to alter songs in real time.


Musicatini

Fang Yi Lin

Musicatini is a set of cocktails that include interaction and sound in its recipe. Each cocktail is an experience that requires all 5 senses to enjoy. The performance starts when the cocktail is being made, and ends when an audience member finishes drinking the 'interactive' cocktail.


Laser Harp

Trevor Freed

My project is an adapted design of a Laser Harp. A laser harp is an archetypal musical instrumental, similar to a traditional Irish harp or lyre, but the strings of the traditional harp design are replaced with laser beams, each paired with individual photosensors. Rather than modifying a traditional harp body, instead I designed (with a lot of help from Romaine), modelled, and laser-cut a wooden dual-frame for the body of the harp. The Electrocoustic Jellymuse is an interactive sound sculpture featuring a giant glowing, burbling jellyfish. You can play with it by touching the tentacles together, or pouring water on its head! Friendly and organic, the Jellymuse is fun for all ages.


2013


Soundcaster

Alon Devorah, Gabriele Carotti-Sha, Andrew Forsyth

LET THERE BE SOUND!

...And there was sound.

The staff chooses the wizard. That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied the ancient runes. These connections are deep and complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the staff learning from the wizard, the wizard from the staff.

But what good are our mere words? Humans, dwarves, elves, and any other beings we are humbled and grateful to have in our presence here today, come! Let us show you. Let us share in the adventure and discovery. Let us take you away to a world where you will be immersed entirely in the magic of sound.


O^3: A Controller Based Around Concentric Circles

David Bordow, Erich Peske

Our controller is a prototype based around one of the most fundamental controls: a turntable. Our goal is to implement the turntable in a way that has never been done. Using a stacked-gear mechanism, we are able to put one disk on top of another on top of another. The user will theoretically be able to hook up the O^3 to any editable parameter allowing fluid, tactile, and precise control for use in sampling, ambient, or whatever the imagination creates. We hope to continue our work on the controller into the next quarter and will strive to improve the product over time.


Sound of Sirens

Gina Collecchia, Kevin McElroy, Dan Somen

"Siren Organ" is an electro-mechanical instrument consisting of compressed air and motor-driven disks with evenly spaced perforations. Three different controllers were designed, each with a dedicated disk (the siren). These controllers contain a network of air tubes to direct air flow from a compressor to individual rings on the sirens. These rings have different numbers of equally spaced holes to create a fundamental frequency, and varying radii of the holes to create harmonics.

The motor speed can be controlled by a fader, creating frequency sweeps that are classic to the siren sound. A custom manifold of valves, buttons, and air pathways as well as ball valves and blow guns control the pressure of the compressed air. Hence, the performer can control volume in addition to pitch. A master valve connects to each controller and splits into 4 hoses + valves, to provide an upper limit of the possible pressure. The hose leading from the compressor is also split into 3 channels, feeding each controller.

This is an extension of a design by Bart Hopkin from the papers ""Sirens, Part One"" (Vol. 12, #4, pp. 13-18, June 1997) and ""Sirens Part Two"" (Vol. 13, #1, pp. 19-22, Sept. 1997), both in Experimental Musical Instruments.


Cyber Bully

Micah Arvey, Rooney Pitchford, Zach Saraf

The Cyber Bully is a digital guitar effects pedal that utilizes a USB trackball for effect control rather than a conventional on/off toggle switch, ideal for experimenting with wacky and practical guitar sounds on the fly. The trackball controls four effects; velocity in the positive y direction and negative y direction correlate to the strength of one effect each, while velocity in each x direction correlates to an effect, combining four effects into one setting. A diagonal spin results in a mix of the two effects based on the spin angle. Two switches allow for toggling through effect settings, one allows for bypass, and another implements an auxiliary, instantaneous effect specific to each effect setting. One additional knob controls total volume, and two other knobs set a default level for each effect when the ball is still. Effect processing is run through Pure Data.


Space Ball

Emily Graber, David Grunzwieg, Michael Mendoza, Kunal Datta

The Spaceball was designed by Music 250a students Emily Graber, Kunal Datta, Mike Mendoza and David Grunzweig. The device is intended to simplify 3D panning on large, multichannel sound systems. In the past, any type of panning for multichannel sound systems was done in software before the performance. Our goal was to design a logical interface to help users make the most of their sound system during a performance. The buttons moving around the surface of the Spaceball’s dome represent the perceived origin of the sound in space of a specific track, with the top of the dome representing the point directly above the user. The faders allow the user to control the volume of the each individual track.


Bicycaleidoscope

Brie Bunge, Sophia Westwood

We built a musical instrument in the form of a giant kaleidoscope. Two bike wheels, filled with colorful gels, spin to control the bass line and the melody. Light streams the gels, reflecting in the kaleidoscope to produce brilliant visual effects to accompany the piece. We generate the harmony and melody via Hall effect sensors that detect magnets on the bike wheels and pass the input into a machine learning algorithm.


controlled environment

Brandon Cheung

This project is actually a preview for Brandon Cheung's Personal Statement in the Product Design program so there is very little that we can say about it.


Sonic Drop

Elliot Kermit-Canfied, Pablo Castellanos, Cooper Newby, Justin Li

Sonic Droplet is a self-contained interactive audio-visual sculpture comprised of water activated sensors mounted on a suspended, internally lit cube that glows in response to human interaction with the device. Meshing visual art with sound synthesis when the water sensors are activated, Sonic Droplet generates beautiful