Kristine Kim – Looking Outward – 04

Sugarcude, an arduino powered grid-based MIDI,Musical Instrument Digital Interface, controller boots up into a variety of apps to produce sounds. Amanda Ghassaei, the creator behind this piece was inspired by the monome and tenori-on when she was in college. She focused on having the controller itself do all the app processing, not relying on a computer to process button presses/analog controls into MIDI, which makes it portable. The controller can boot up to 7 different apps even though it has the potential to boot up to 16 total. This device is primarily a MIDI controller, but the artist also wrote an app that allows the audience to pull the button and analog data into Max MSP and control audio. I was drawn into this project because of its simple design and its ability to produce sound by itself. After examining the artist’s website and her procedures into making SugarCube, I was more intrigued by concept and idea behind her work. The website contains a lot more complex and detailed steps of the project.

https://www.instructables.com/id/Sugarcube-MIDI-Controller/