Ribbon Control
A gestural touch interface that I created for the Designing Physical Interactions for Music workshop at Stanford's CCRMA. I'm using an LED light strip to visualize a simple physical model which is running on a microcontroller. The real-time data is used for simultaneous control of audio synthesis.
The system models two rotating discs, which appear as groups of blue and red lights. A ribbon controller tracks the position and lateral velocity of any single touch, and in conjunction with two pushbuttons, it can be used to rotate or translate either disc. The friction of each disc can be varied in real-time via potentiometers, where zero friction allows applied motions to cycle indefinitely.
A computer running Pure Data handles the audio synthesis. Only a single oscillator with integrated filter is used–there are no clocks, sequencers, envelope generators, or other modulators–and there is no direct manipulation of any of the synthesis parameters: the only control data is that which is generated by motion upon the ribbon.
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