Collin Oldham The RT (radio trowel) and The Cellomobo from Amber Case on Vimeo.

It was pretty cool. The mastermind was Collin, as you can see here:

Colin began his demonstration by saying that, “the things that make an instrument useful in a live performance — are things that give an audience a connection to what you’re doing”.

“Luckinly there’s a guy at Stanford named Maximus Mathhews who invented computer music, luckly he is still there — but like 80 years old”.

Collin Oldham et al showed us two things. First was a trowel (think gardening) with a pizoelectric pickup sent data to a microcontroller to a sensor data to a data catcher, making intense sounds along the way. The setup was like a zen garden on astroturf — and the noises were awesome. In addition, there was an object resenbling a Cello called a “Cellomobo”.

The cellomobo is a computer music instrument that attempts to model the behavior of a bowed string. It gives haptic feedback to the bow at audio rate to simulate the stick-slip action of a bowed string.

This feedback stream finds it way back into the audio stream, creating a unique hybrid of digital and analog synthesis.

The Cello part had haptic sensors and pressure sensors, and made brighter sounds when pushed harder. The pickup was sensitive to bending.

About Collin

Collin spent the 2005-2006 academic year at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) where began to develop the electronic musical instruments he presented today.

After a short lecture, everyone begin working with electronics, and I am happy to say that the room is filled with crazy sounds. It is like a strange cybernetic orchestra, with each piece of electronics playing an individual part.

Donald Delmar Davis of Tempus Dictum went over creating sound using the Arduino’s built in Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and Direct Digital Synthesis using resistive ladders. He investigated using the Piezo element as both a simple speaker and an input trigger. He reviewed the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) from a hardware and software perspective, and looked at a couple of useful integrated circuits (the lm324 and the lm368).

Although all of the noise makers are based on the same chip, each has a unique and different voice. Additionally, the workshop is going on in an art room, so people have taken to walking around the room to look at projects as if they are art.

Dorkbot – Focused Workshop, 30Nov08, Making Noise with the Arduino from Amber Case on Vimeo.

The Arduino Cult Induction series of workshops are Sponsored by Tempus Dictum, Inc. in support of DorkbotPDX. Arduino workshops cost $25 and participants recieve a complete midi interface board for the dorkboard/arduino.

Workshops are usually held at PNCA (NW 12th and Johnson). You can find out more on the official Dorkbot PDX website.

The Arduino Way

The Arduino philosophy is based on making design rather than talking about it. It is a constant search for faster and more accurate ways to build better prototypes.

The classic engineering relies on a strict process from getting to A to B while the Arduino way is based on maybe getting lost in the way and finding C instead. This is he process of tinkering that we are so found of; playing with the medium in an open-ended way, finding the unexpected. In this search we also selected a number of software packages that enable that process, this constant manipulation of the software and hardware medium.

“If you put your engineer’s head on, you’ll see things very differently vs. if you put your artist’s head on”, said Don.