MEDI 264: Interactive Sound and Vision - Critical Evaluation For the Draft Project

The prototype for my project actually works extremely well, it functions as a tone matrix even if it can sometimes be a little erratic, however more often than not it is very tonal and the sounds it makes are of a pleasing yet raw quality, there are instances when it does sound fuzzy and the beeps are a bit off tone to what we humans think is melodic. I need to investigate this and further play around with it. Overall the project has huge potential for scope. I could take it in the direction of a ‘one on one’ sound mixer, which would be a neat little toy using different sounds for each point on the matrix that could be interfaced with via a computer, or I could take it down the road I really wanted to which is to link to some kind of motion sensitive mat and then have it as either a motion controlled tone matrix or have it doing something similar to the sound mixer but with the motion sensor that can then be part of an immersive environment or create a new layer within an environment. I have researched very extensively into motion capture, as it was my original intent to produce a project heavily involving that and I do draw a lot of my inspiration for the project from modern games and gadgets. I like the fun interactivity aspect and would ideally like to be able to create a space that children and adults could play in and have the sound controlled by where they were. With this idea in mind the bigger the space and the more people in the space would affect the overall sound being produced. This kind of thing as an installation would work better the more people that did interact with it.

I was intending to source the sounds from freesound.org and have only very short sound clips that looped. The sample size for sound would be huge so lots of different sounds could be selected either fitting a specific theme or having no cohesion at all. I would love to experiment with this as there is the potential to then have a tone matrix for every season, every mood, different locations etc. It really could literally be limitless. I could also experiment with sourcing my own sounds and then using a single sound with altered pitch for one matrix.

I worked very hard on the tone matrix, having very little knowledge of the software and basically having to teach myself as I went. It was a very challenging but incredibly rewarding experience. I have really learned what I am doing in Max5 now as far as the matrix is concerned and I like the software a lot. I do want to continue this project on since I really care a lot about it and it such a massive scope for expansion. I may in further versions put back in the tone control feature I removed but I would like it to have a much more intuitive interface than just a number box as although you can get some really cool sounds you can also get noises that are horrific and very hard on the ears. I would have to do further research into scales and have to work a lot more with Max5 so that I had the technical skills possible to achieve my aims. I also could do more research into this to see if my idea has ever been produced before and if so see how it was handled so that I had a solid grounding in the technical issues and details of the project.

I feel that although my tone matrix is not as good as the one that gave me the original idea it does exactly what it is supposed to. They also work on very different software so each may have flaws or high points that the other doesn’t. I am overall very happy with my tone matrix but would like to develop it further.