XPUB 1 «↔» SPECIAL ISSUE X «↔» LFP

1.Session with Dennis de Bel

Meergranen module - all required parts

Meergranen module - all parts
soldered together

Meergranen module with custom
lasercut frontpanel

Intro into modular synthesis: (exists in both, analogue and digital form)
Several modules, that are not hardwired totgether.
Each module does (not allways) one task only - but does that very good.
In-, outputs allow to interface several modules.
Soldering / testing of the "Meergranen" module
Flashing different presets with onto the Arduino
Designing and lasercutting the first custom frontpanel

Custom sample selection (to be continued):

2.Session with Olli Aarni at De Player

Dennis playing around with
a modular synthesizer setup

Modular synthesizer setup

Listening sessions with the purpose of learning how to talk about sound
Hunting interesting sounds and writing a description of them
Inventing a new word to describe the sound: "knüsprichtlic" (engl.: "crunchdenseyficial")
learning musical vocabulary (pitch, frequency, timbre, overtone, metrics,...)
Exercise: sorting given abstract soundfiles into categories and naming them

Pile of objects that we brought
to the workshop to make music with

My improvised "instrument" and
notation for a performance

Recording of performances

Everybody brings in 3-4 random objects that one can make sound with
Choose objects and experiment with making:

..the most quite sound possible
..the longest sound possible
..shortest sound possible
..a sound that involves a change in pitch
..a sound that involves a change in timbre

Choose objects and create sounds that match the categories created yesterday
Create a composition / performance and write down notation
Perform while being recorded
Jam in groups while being recorded
Talking about language (Phoneme, toneme, chroneme -> see interesting links)
Speech to song instrument: recording speech - looping a part of it and listening to the melody
Add recording from earlier and make a quick song
Course feedback

Field trip to Dutch Modular Fest

3.Session with Dennis de Bel

Talking about possibilities and limitations of Arduino
Introduction to Arduino coding
Playing around with the Meergranen
Connecting several Meergranen modules and modulating them with oneanother

Several Meergranen
modules connected

...

4.Session with Dennis de Bel

Recap on how to use the Git (with Aymeric)
Synthesis Basics (additive synth., substractive synth., FM synth., granular synth., wavetable synth., ...)
Making a simple Kick with Arduino
Going to meet again on Fr, 11.10 to deepen understanding of Arduino code and check the modules (see pad xpub1temp2)

Kick on osciloscope

Independent Development 1

Developing and building a simple external trigger using a staple remover, 2 AA bateries, some cables, insulating tape, metal wire (paperclip) and a lightbulb to check battery level
Properly insulate one side of the staple remover and wrap the metal wire around it (must not touch the metal)
When closing the staple remover the wire must touch the other side of it (to closer the circuite and act as a switch)
Cut a patchcable in half and seperate the inner and outer cables from another
Connect wires to the batteries/patchcable/staple remover/(lightbulb is optional) as shown in the drawing

Circuite diagram (unconventional)

Final trigger(s)

Final trigger(s)

5.Session with Olli Aarni at De Player

First Day

Feedback on the state of the process / work done so far
Collecting concept ideas (unstructured):
- Need to let go, try out, find common ground
- Transparency / de-blackboxing
- Accessibility
- Haptic gestural input
- Deeper meaning: What do we want to say?
- Visual output
- Visualize sound
- Analog / unconventional input triggers
- Visualize the process / concept
- Cultural signals / speech
- Embrace frustration
- Keep public in mind
- A map as an interface
- A map as a manual (as part of the publication)
- Let the user choose the way to go (soundwise)
- Sound maze
- Navigating / journeying through the modules that create an overall soundscape together
- What should the experience be?
- Create sound with strangers
- Deomcratize the process of the creation of audiovisual content
- Open or close the "black box" (ramdomness / chaos // transparency)
- Playing with expectations
- Universal connection matrix
- Live manual / adjusting to the actions of the user
- Each module having both, one seen and one unseen function
- Producing a series of modules, rather than just one single "percious" object
- Educational / explainatory?
- Accesibility or transparency?
- Importance of code as the underlaying basis
- Showing whats behind the surface
- Several layers of depth
  - Playing aroung / interfacing / accessing
  - Understanding
  - Interpret
- Unpredictability
- Transpartent about our own project process

Two sides:
- Accessible - Inaccessible
- Mystifying - Demystifying
- Tranparency - Black box

Second Day

Publication
- Big map
- Individual pockets to fill
- Flowcharts / diagram
- Statement on experience
- Journey

Exhibition
- Two sides:
  - Mystified - Demystified
- Gradient / slider from mystified to demystified
- Charish the ambivalent
- Work closer together in model development for connectivity and good integration
- Different combinations for different narratives

Technical potential
- Usage of language
- Visualize performance
- Usage of speech to modify...
- The modules as a representation of a deeper concept (?!)
- Input sound - Output different sound
- Input sound - Output visuals
- Using components from old phone (text messaging / camera / antenna / screen / phone as module)
- Input code (binary) - translation - output speech / strange sounds
- Modules as vehicles for audio essays
- Different types of listening (knobs to choose)
- Output raw data
- Video / image manipulation with narrative aspect
- X-Y-manipulation
- Asymetrical, confusing interface

Felt relation of demystification
and understanding

Ollis conclusion

Endless amount of unstructured text / ideas
Conceptual starting point: mystify - demystify / transparent - black box
Common groung but enough freedom for individual idea development
Accessibility - inaccessibility = too broad
Find individual approaches
Map as a part of the publication
- Map in a map / flowchart
- Mapping somethting that is not physical
Design or art -> Democratic approach
Meet in study week to make ideas developed compatible

Independent Development 2 (Concept)

Name of module: Glutenfrei (Working title)

Audio/visual/other: Audio / Focus on interface

Input: I want to work with a variety of input sources that can be controlled with gestures, through shifting of bodyweight and maybe touch to cause dance-like movements by the user that result in sound output.

The input sources would (1.) trigger different sounds and (2.) modulate different parameters of these sounds. They would be installed in a three-dimensional - spaced out way within a room to encourage movement by one or multiple users. This technique might rely on more than one module. It could be connected to multiple other modules as in, or outputs to trigger more actions / different sounds and would work well with a visual component.

Output: The Output would be an auditive creation (soundscape) made by the user trough his/her interactions.

Description/Algorithm: The underlaying idea is to simplify / demystify the interface to empower a broad users community to participate intuitively in creating the soundscape. Also I would like to make the internal process transparent to render the way of operation of the device itself and the creation as understandable as possible.

Independent Development 3

Working with Light Dependent Resistors
Adding 1/2 LDRs to the trigger circuit and mesuring the input values
Using map and contrain function to translate the input
values to the desired range
Writing a program to test the LDRs by generating a tone and manipulating the
Hertz value with the mapped and constrained input values

LDR

Independent Development 4

Setting up an array of 4 LDRs and connecting them to the 4 available Inputs on the Meergranen
Writing a code: to trigger a different sound with each input; to change the pitch of arpeggiated tones; to change the frequency of a single tone;
Empirical value: Too little inputs are available, 8-18 would be nice; When using the Arduino tone function on a singular output only monophony is possible;
Possible solutions: Integrate a library that supports polyphony; Use individual outputs for each tone;

LDR Array

6.Session with Dennis de Bel

Introduction to the basics of electronics
Arduino and breadboard basics

Breadboard Setup

Independent Development 5

Concept sketches

ConceptSketch1

ConceptSketch2

ConceptSketch3

Fieldtrip to Impakt Festival on Thursday, 31st October

Panel Discussion: Messages from the Biological Self
Screening: Co-opting entities
Panel Discussion: Virtual Reality and Body Ownership

Impakt Festival

Mark Forid

7.Session with Dennis de Bel at Varia

Changing from Arduino Nano to the ESP8266 for greater processing power

Working with 4 x 16bit ADC multitplexers to generate 16 inputs out of two pins
Connecting a LDR to each Input
Further advantage: 16bit offers greater resolution
Writing code to measure these 16 input values (by using the Adafruit_ADS1X15 library https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_ADS1X15) and trigger a different tone with each one
For now getting rid of the idea of bodyweight shift triggers -> focussing on polyphony

Multiplexer/ADC

Multiplexer/ADC

Independent Development 6

Research on audio libraries for Arduino
Working with the Mozzi audio synthesis library to gain greater control over the audio output and to create polyphony

8.Session with Michael

Setting up a simple touch keyboard to test the Mozzi audio synthesis library
Writing a simple code to trigger up to 3 tones at the same time
Output signal is very distorted (due to PWM) -> need to build a low pass filter

Test-touch-keyboard

Independent Development 7

Building a resistor capacitor low pass filter
Writing code to trigger different tones with the test-keyboard as well as adjusting their volume to prevent overload on the output
Combining the two codes
Empirical value: Mozzi and Adafruit_ADS1X15 seem to be using the same timer and thus won’t compile
In depth research about possibilities of changing these competing codes - without success
Switching to musicwithoutdelay library to resolve the problems
ESP8266 keeps crashing when running code -> switching back to Arduino Nano
4 voiced polyphony running stable on Arduino Nano with Adafruit_ADS1X15

resistor capacitor lowpass filter circuit

9.Session with Andre

Writing code that triggers up to 16 voices
Arduino Nano keeps crashing when running code for more than 4 voiced polyphony -> too limited resources
Switching to Arduino Mega 2560
10 voiced polyphony running stable on Arduino Mega 2560
16+ voices are only possible on the Teensy LC & 3,0+ (incredible processing power! Would love to switch, should order one…)
Output value is distorted, keeps clipping and has high latency

on the Nano

10.Session with Dennis de Bel

Including a CV (control voltage) output option that can be switched on or off in the code to interface other modules
Getting rid of the multiplexers (as the Arduino Mega 2560 provides more then enough pins) to lower the latency and clean up code
Signal still distorted and delayed

on the mega

Independent Development 8

Working with the sensortobutton library to lower latency
Latency seems to be way better, but tones will never switch off properly - can’t fix that
Getting rid of sensortobutton library - restructuring and cleaning up previous code
Implementing a volume calculation, depending on number of instruments playing and distance of hand to LDR to prevent clipping and add controllability:  VOL0 = 50/count+constrain((analogRead(A0), TH0, TH0+450, 0, 50), 0, 50);
10 voices polyphony now running super stable without clipping and with relatively low latency
Ordered a Teensy LC board. Lets see.
Recap see: [1]

Helpful/interesting links

Watchlist

I Dream of Wires - Documentary on the history of synthesizers by director Robert Fantinatto
Youtube playlist with (sometimes random) videos I collect concerning "Synthesizer/Electronics/DIY"
Youtube playlist with videos I collect concerning "Interface/UX/Design"
Youtube playlist with videos I collect concerning "Coding"

Pads

User:Max Lehmann/Special Issue X

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