iNTERACTIVE SOUND DESIGN
CITRUS SYNTHESIZER
04.2023 - 05.2024
TITLECitrus Synthesizer
Citrus Fruits, Microbit
1/4 Inch Armature Wire
LED Light strip, Computer
MATERIALSCODING Max MSP, Python, Javascript
MOTIVATION
Digital music is usually created sitting at a laptop.
Traditional instruments immerse us in sound, sight, and feeling. Digital sound reduces the sensory experiences of making music to tapping a button on a computer.
I was curious to explore digital music as an opportunity to integrate new senses, rather than a constraint that reduces them.
PHASE 1:
TANGIBLE INTERACTION
Citrus Synthesizer uses capacitive touch to send signals to a Microbit. The user places one hand on the home button, an orange, connected to a ground pin, then taps a finger on the lemon to play a sound. This completes the circuit, allowing electrons to flow from the ground, through the person, into the lemon. I coded the Microbit to play a note on each tap. tapping all three buttons simultaneously plays a little jingle.
PHASE 2:
VISUAL INTERFACE
I connected the audio to a spirograph, a geometric drawing tool to visualize the sound. A song can be reduced to a pattern of taps, and shapes can be reduced to simple equations - but the output is something more than that.
Initially, I had wanted to create an add-on to the citrus synth that sounded better than the microbit’s speaker, but I quickly discovered a host of new opportunities when I connected the instrument to a computer.
Connect sight and sound
with trigonometry
Sound can be mapped as waveforms that show vibrations through air. Altering the frequency and amplitude of the waveforms alter the sounds.
connect shape and rhythm
with a childhood toy
Growing up, I loved playing with spirographs to create looping symmetrical shapes. I loved the sound my pen made as it rhythmically looped around the page.
I later learned these shapes are created by two parametric equations that calculate the x and y coordinates of the pen as it traces the path of a smaller circle moving around a larger one.
The spirograph represented the sound as a two dimensional object, rather than a one dimensional graph. This allowed for visualizations of how the entire sound changes with each change in frequency and amplitude. Similarly, this mimics the shape of the fruits representing sound emanating from each tap.
Spirographs map waves on a circle
digital sound design in max msp
I connected the max patch to the microbit from the citrus synthesizer, so each fruit tap played a different sound.
I then took snapshots from each sound sample, and fed those into a javascript spirograph visualization.
