This is a sequencer that allows you to create shapes and patterns that generate sound when a play line runs past the tiles. I was not able to spend time on this assignment at all since I was travelling constantly. I hope to improve on the design after the milestone and put in more time for final project.
While I was working on the sequencer, the ability to click tiles was completely lost and I had to debug that. There were other difficulties as well that needed time to address such as sound output etc.
Design pad in action
The design pad makes a piano like sound when the playline hits the tile
It further plays an ascending order of pentatonic notes in the triangle pattern as seen in the figure
Initially, I was intending to do create a vinyl recorder as I had mentioned in my previous milestone. However, I found that someone else had implemented it. So I modified the sequencer to act as a calligraphy writer.
I would like to take more time for development of sound. For now, I have modified the ADSR parameters and increased the probability of using snare drums in the drum machine example of chugl to create a soldier/mission like musical background.
Further I modified the frequencies for the acid bass and the time durations for the fluctuations in gain in the audio.
I would like to play with the colors and make the drawing pad/ calligraphy pad more fluid. Further, I would like to code the music such that each color represents a different fun sound effect. I would also like to use button clicks to change orientation of the tiles so that one could draw clouds.
Most of the sequencers that I found online were linear sequencers. They would have tiny instrument symbols to represent the sample that they would play. The sequencers would have 7 parallel threads horizontally but each thread would be assigned to one note.
These sequencers were designed to be used as MIDI sequencers or Drum sequencers. However, I found a few interesting circular sequencers. One circular sequencer was like a radar. The spoke would turn anti-clockwise and the you could add elements to the circle to generate sounds. This gave me the idea for my Vinyl record player idea.
Another idea that comes to mind based on my research is using DNA sequencing to create a sequencer. However, I am not completely sure of how that could be implemented.
A Vinyl Record is the perfect example of something going in loops. As a circular object that spins on the record playing device, it acts as a perfect loop system where the playing line is stationary but the disk rotates.
The disc has 8 bold stems (where each stem can represent the boundaries of a bar) and 8 other lightly marked stems (in between each bold stem to mark a half note) where each stem starts from the center and ends at the circumference. On the side will be a tab with 7 circles of different colors.
Each circle represents a note of an octave. The user can drag and drop these onto different positions of the stems. The disc is initially stationary but once the start button is hit, it begins to rotate. There will also be options on the top to change the instrument such that the 7 circles represent
different timbres/instruments. The circles on the disc can also be dragged to be made bigger or smaller to change the loudness. The notes will be from saxaphone samples, drum samples and violin samples.
Meditation Chakras and the body
There are 7 meditation chakras in the body that are each representative of one syllable or frequency. The seven syllables are 'lum', 'vum','rum','yum','hum','om', and 'aum'.
They are known to be situated in seven locations in the body along the spinal cord. In this sequencer, the spinal cord is laid horizontal, thus making it a linear one. On the bottom will be a bar consisting of symbols for the seven chakras.
Similar to the previous example, these symbols can be dragged and dropped at different locations of the horizontal spine. Once the start button is pressed, a pointer moves from left to right at a standard speed across the chakra sequence.
The chakras can be made large or small to increase or decrease volume in real time. This sequencer will have 3 options for timbre. Either the frequency of the chakra or the syllable of the chakra or bells, but can be used interchangeably in the sequencer.
Indian Notes on Sitar strings
A sitar is an instrument has a total of 20 strings (7 main strings). The background of the scene are frets from a sitar placed horizontally. We use the main strings as note locators in the sequencer. When the user clicks on the note locators, they turn purple by default, playing one of the seven notes with sitar tone.
On the left of the Sitar fret are the words Sa,Re,Ga,Ma,Pa,Dha,Ni representing the seven notes in Indian Classical music. On the side bar to the right are color options where each color represents a different Indian instrument. Across the fret are 16 bars.
