By William Lamkin

In reflecting on how to utilize ambient sound that adaptively changes, I’ve decided to use a modular synthesizer to generate sounds. I had toyed around with the idea of using an mp3 playing device that would work with an Arduino, but I realized that the technology involved with those wasn’t as fully interactive as I would like it to be. My goals for this project are for the actions of the user to have a significant effect on the sound.

I will be using logic chips for all of connections, and these will be connected to the board to be cut via a alligator clips, and the output signals of these logic chips will then be sent into the inputs of the Arduino. The Arduino will send out voltages through an Adafruit Quad DAC which I have ordered and I will be able to connect to the synthesizer via these audio jack parts. In the link is a demo of the kinds of sounds that can be made and changed.

Ambient Sound Demo

Here is a diagram of what I want the setup to be like! I do want it to be a dark and isolated experience so the user can focus on what they are doing. For documentation purposes, I will be recording a video of myself at home working on this.

Here is an example logic problem for how a parameter of music could be changed.