Final Documentation – Boxed Instrument

Concept

My concept of this project is to use every day objects and elements to make a whimsical and powerful instrument. Therefore I use a found box as the main body of my instrument and collected human voice samples as the sound library for my audio program. The end result is a simple but playful instrument that contains unlimited sound vibrations.

Physical Part

Rhino File Demonstration

The images and Rhino File demonstrate the physical design of this instrument. The front side of the lid holds one end of rubber strings while the back of the lid attached all of the hardware materials. Two stoppers keep the box open when the rubber bands are in tension.  The stand inside the box serves both the holder for phone and also attached to the other ends of the strings.

Hardware Part

The hardware part of this instrument include a piezo microphone that picked up the sudden frequency change caused by the rubber band string vibration and transfer that to the bonk~ patch in PureData to trigger the sound sample.

Software Part:

Main Patch

Some Sub Patches

The GUI is programmed in the MobMuPlat Editor and the audio engine is programmed with the graphical programming language Pure Data. The MobMuPlat App on IOS host the entire program. When the piezo detected a vibration of the rubber band, the data is sent to the bonk~ patch in PD. One random sound sample will be trigger and looping until the “Clear” button being pressed. The sound send from the PD program to the speaker being the acrylic lib and vibrate the lib to playback the sound.

MobMuPlat Interface

The In volume controls how sensitive the bonk~ patch will be; the Out Volume controls the output volume of this instrument; The clear is simply to clear all of the samples that all playing; The duration controls the length of the samples that are looping.

The idea is to keep it simple but playful. Therefore, even though there are multiple sound samples, they are all controlled by the same bar. To make it more playful and unpredictable, I got rid of the control bar for samples’ start points. Instead, whenever the rubber band being trigger, a random start point will be assigned.

Final Demonstration