Visualizing Sound
The connection of music and interface design got more important since the music industry is digging deeper into the digital world. A standardized interface design for live performance as well as in the music production was developed the last decade. With new hardware interfaces like XBox Kinect, WiiMote and iPad, the interfaces make a new step forward in design und usability.
The connection of music and interface design got more important since the music industry is digging deeper into the digital world. A standardized interface design for live performance as well as in the music production was developed the last decade. With new hardware interfaces like XBox Kinect, WiiMote and iPad, the interfaces make a new step forward in design und usability.
So the task for my bachelor degree was to invent, design and prototype a new sort of interface, which is usable via XBox Kinect Controller. The design part was focussed on a fusion of interface design, lettering and poster asthetics. Together with a small amount of data (7 MB at all) it is possible, to built your own music interfaces and installation to control and perform your musical composition. Advanced musicians as well as beginners and non-musicians can make sounds. The experience of doing music with it's bare hands and to interact with the room and a poster is a new and unique approach to make and visualize music.
Technique used: Ableton Live is running in the background, MIDI signals are sent from a processing sketch to Ableton Live to control several parameter of the musical composition. Every parameter is customizable as well the graphics (fore- and background images and animation). The Processing sketch itself analyse the incoming sound-signal (via SoundFlower) by Fast Fourier Transformation and is doing the animation part as well as interfacing the Kinect to control every part of the installation.
