HW/SW-Development of a Multichannel Looper Instrument

Description

• The idea behind this project was to build a multichannel looper instrument that can be played solely by acoustic and haptic feedback. The interface design doesn’t contain any visual feedback and enables the performer to play entirely by ear. Furthermore, the instrument integrates concepts of the musique-concrète technique that was developed by Pierre Schaeffer in the 1950s. [1] In contrast to a traditional looper pedal, this instrument allows drastic live- modifications to the recorded and looped sound material. The possible modifications include selecting the start and end of the loop within the recorded audio material, as well as playing the loop reversed and at altered speed. The concept has been realised with the open-source hardware platform “Bela” [2], with software being developed in the computer music language Pure Data. A video that shows a first experimental piece can be found on vimeo [3].

[1] “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musique_concr%C3%A8te”

[2] “https://github.com/BelaPlatform/bela-hardware”

[3] “https://vimeo.com/277252836”

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Technology Stack: Hardware Dev, Bela, PureData

Work Affiliation: Music Informatics Seminar, Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics, KUG Graz