PulsR Progress Sketches

PULSR (Ian Birnam, Shana Hu, Meena Vempaty)

Please see the attached documents for a diagram of the construction and sketches of the interaction.

Purpose: PulsR is meant to be an instrument accessible to people with no prior music experience. The settings we see it being used in are when playing with it alone, and when playing it for a small group of people. Its similarity to existing stringed instruments and visual display aspect give it a focus on embodied play and performance.

Construction

Neck: The neck has three linear potentiometers(analogous to the strings on a stringed instrument) that are used to control pitch. Each "string" covers 12 notes over one octave, but the range is continuous (it is possible to "slide" from one note to another). There are ridges in the neck (frets) to show where different notes are; these ridges provide tactile feedback as to where your fingers are. The neck is 18 inches long.

Head: The head bears buttons that can be used to change the way pitch is modulated. One mode allows any note in the range of the "strings" to be played. Other modes constrain the instrument so that discrete ranges of the "strings" correspond to notes from a scale, with different modes corresponding to different scales. For example, in "Ionic" mode, one would only be able to produce notes from the Ionic scale, no matter what finger positions were used on the strings. The head is also where the Arduino microprocessor is mounted

Amplifier: The amplifier is held in a cavity between the head and the body.

Body: The body has a flat surface. In the center is a large touchpad used to control the volume of the sound from the instrument. When the touchpad is not touched, it produces no sound. When the touchpad is touched, it produces sound, which is louder if the touchpad is given more force. The touchpad is built of a force sensor underneath a foam surface, which is covered with a thin hard surface like plastic. The foam surface gives tactile feedback as to how much pressure is being applied to the force sensor, while the hard surface allows for several notes to be played in quick succession with a tapping motion. LEDs are mounted under a translucent surface on the body, and are used to visualize what is being played using the instrument. The body is 12 inches long.