Month: November 2016

Melissa and I decided to work together for the final project. We are working on creating a water instrument. The main interface will be a water fall or water sheet.

I am thinking about the pros and cons or it being a midi controller versus a function generator.

+Post Final Project Concept discussion (11/12/16):
We had a very productive demonstration of our water synth project. Here is a video of how we simulated our concept.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwhLLJ6mam0]

We received a lot of great feedback from our classmates and of course our Instructor Benedetta. After the testing we knew we had a good idea to proceed with and were confident that it would be something we could pursue.

After the demo we met to test our idea. We wanted to have several lasers travel through a waterfall. Unfortunately that is not easy to do and the results were not promising. We were able to get the laser to travel along a stream but it became increasingly difficult to get a projection the higher we went.

DELIVERABLES (WIP)

I enjoy listening to and playing synthesizers. These days most synthesizers are digital. That’s great because it allows them to be cheaper and reach a greater amount of people while offering a greater flexibility with sound. However there’s a limit to the resolution of digital synthesizers. We also lose a lot from circuits that simulate or model an analog synth. Analog synths are expensive, they’re messy, heavy etc.

1- One idea for a final is to bring analog qualities back into sampled and function generated wave forms. Usually water and synthesizers don’t mix. But if I can run a MIDI controller through a circuit that uses a water height sensor, I think I would be able to add back analog elements into the sounds being played. Also maybe the water can be the expression interface for the instrument itself. I can use other physical qualities of water to manipulate sound and modulation.

2- A second idea I had was to detect position along a RGB plane and have that affect color output among other things. There are already MIDI controllers that allow sound modulation along track pad axis. However this could be an interesting project if there is a unique application for it.