The wood board was sanded and the corners rounded. Initial idea was to try out a matrix pattern but using one line to start with. Holes were drilled and sanded off.
Springs were found in STEIM and EWP at Sonology and the springs were chosen due to lovely action when pressing down on it. Thoughts were to glue these cardboard squares to the top of the springs (easy for fingers to press down) and then for the springs to be glued onto the wood. If you ‘wash’ your hands over it (whilst pressing down: ‘Wash on, Wash off’) there might be this lovely connected movement of the springs – from the initial spring to the last – which would mimic the way I ‘wash’ my cello with my hands ie. from A to B, stroking circular action. Also coming to mind would be little ‘thousands’ of mini joysticks all with x, y, z possibilities.
1st experiment failed: The squares should be round and smaller for greater circular mobility around the spring. They were placed too close together (the cardboard shapes were touching all sides) and the square shape meant limited movement.
Matrix thoughts:
This was from the internet https://sites.google.com/site/bergersprojects/reedcb/matrix
A lovely table of an array matrix (reed switches) which inspired me.
The one with the straws was an idea for light sensors. This didn’t have so much affect due to the straws’ inability to screen out light.
Attributes: The wood itself was springy and light. With the springs attached, you could make quite nice acoustic resonances from the board being so adaptable/flexible to tiny movements. The springs themselves, whilst not having the square cardboard attached, had a very attractive movement response, and you could hear the frequency differences due to the individual spring makeup.
I also love copper tape. Still to try out sensors to be added to the board.
Started messing with the Arduino to try – initially – a row of LDRs.
I used a tone pitch control patch – like a theremin – to use hand movements to change the pitch.
The three LDRs were not of the same strengths – the last in the row was always the strongest. But each LDR had something to give. Obviously the smoothing in the patch gave the nicest glissandos and the opposite had some nice grungy step pitching going on.
This led me to question individual control of the LDRs which is preferable to me.
Can you only use one Analogue in, on the arduino?
Other Sensors were looked at briefly:
Hall sensor…
Multiplexers and Shift register chips to be looked at….
I used a basic shift register patch but the internal clock giving it a consistency in time was not what I was looking for.
The Multiplexer is the next step forward.