PulsR

PulsR
 
Team Members: Ian Birnam, Shana Hu, Meena Vempaty
 
PulsR is an inexpensive and accessible instrument made to be easy to learn for people with little to no music experience. Ideally, it is used to perform music for a small group of people. It is meant to be easily recognized as a musical instrument and follows the performance idioms of existing instruments, unlike most existing synthesizers, which tend to take the form of incomprehensible utilitarian stations of knobs and buttons. The PulsR responds to increased levels of physical expression. For example, rocking the instrument back and forth activates changes in the LEDs, and pressing harder and softer controls volume.
 
While it partially uses the metaphor of a guitar for its shape and interaction, the PulsR should be thought of as neither a guitar nor a synthesizer or controller, but rather as an entirely new instrument. Like a guitar, it allows for embodied performance, and like a synthesizer, it gives increased control over the sound’s qualities. However, it is unique in its simplicity and dual focus on both auditory and visual performance.
 
PulsR has three parts: the body, the connecting cavity, and the neck. The top surface of the body will be a touch surface. Touching the surface will play a note, and holding the touch will sustain the note. The volume is determined by the pressure of the touch on the pad. The surface will be translucent, with a display of LEDs surrounding the surface of the body as a visual performance component.
 
The cavity is a hollowed section that connects the neck and the body. It will host the speaker. The neck will have 3 grooves with 12 frets each which control the pitch of the instrument. Moving down the neck gives a higher pitch. The range of pitches can be set to either be continuous or to be split into a set of discrete intervals, and the molding of the neck gives tactile feedback as to where the fingers are placed.
 
Materials:

• Foundation:
  • For now, we will use cardboard to construct the foundation of the entire instrument (i.e. both the body and the neck).
• Touchpad:
  • hard surface: cutting mat
  • soft surface: foam-like surface (possibly oven mitt, cotton, mouse pad)
  • force sensor
  • LEDs
• Amp:
  • small amp provided by Meena
    • needs a D-volt battery
    • need enclosure for it, eventually
    • need to clarify how to connect to rest of instrument
• Neck: Inspired from this video on DIY Position sensing linear potentiometers
  • Conductive black rubber bands
  • conductive and non-conductive binder clips (or use alligator clips)
  • Laird Ni/Cu Fabric Tape with conductive adhesive
• Misc.
  • Arduino
  • breadboard(s)
  • mobile power source for arduino
  • wires, resistors, and other electronic parts that we may need