Visualising Sound

Putting things down on a big piece of paper and shuffling stuff around (on post-its, for example) can really help me to put my mind in order, and yet I'm not doing it enough (believing that I can make and remember all the connections in the privacy of my mind). Tools that would make the experience more pleasurable could help here... like the screen Tom Cruise is operating in Minority Report.

The following film shows the first demo for Reactable, a new instrument that is being developed by the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. As some of you will know, I'm really interested in interfaces (and musical ones in particular) and this looks like it could be a big hit if it could become commercially viable:

Be sure to check out the other demos as well, this is the description from the site:

The reactable hardware is based on a translucent round table. A video camera situated beneath, continuously analyzes the table surface, tracking the nature, position and orientation of the objects that are distributed on its surface, representing the components of a classic modular synthesizer. These objects are passive without any sensors or actuators, users interact by moving them, changing their position, their orientation or their faces (in the case of volumetric objects). These actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. A projector, also from underneath the table, draws dynamic animations on its surface, providing a visual feedback of the state, the activity and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer.

Comments

[Tanguy De Kelver]

Cool interface indeed! But old school rocks! ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ITdpgrcbxI

[Bert]

Also, check out the Percussa AudioCubes at www.percussa.com