Sound Art Project Help

[Albatriana]

Hello,

I'm working on a project that involves multiple oscillators (7), with different frequencies, amplitudes and phases that change over time with a specific sequence, all this going out through a single channel audio output. This is has been programmed in Max/MSP for a Sound Art installation, but for the sake of visual and startup simplicity, I would like to get rid of the computer. I wonder how possible is to have these kind of processes (7 oscillators, phase drive, amplitude controls) automatized within some PCB/Arduino/Ohter gear and skip the computer part, how much in materials would this kind of project cost (an estimate), and if anyone out there would be interested in working on this kind of project or giving advice.

If anyone is interested in a job like this please contact me at [email protected], a professional profile would be best.

Thanks in advance,

Alba Triana
www.albatriana.com

 

[(*steve*)]

We'd be pleased to offer you some ideas if you want them (and are willing to discuss the project openly).

Or are you looking for someone to do this professionally?

 

[Albatriana]

Hello,

I'm all up for learning and understanding what is required for the project and how it works. Still I don't really think I know enough electronics to handle it on my own, I need this to be very clean, stable and issue-free cause this artwork is going to be exhibited at galleries, so actually hiring a professional is my best option (sorry I don't really know where to start looking).

I've been told this project can be made with A Tiva C Launchpad (http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-tm4c123gxl) and a wolfson 24-bit/192kHz DAC (http://au.element14.com/jsp/search/...arch&Ntt=wolfson dac&Ntx=mode matchallpartial), plus some buffer amplifiers for the audio signal; are these good options? any feedback on this?

Thanks again!

 

[(*steve*)]

Those TI boards are very popular. You should be able to find someone with experience with them. I can't comment specifically on the DAC, but it seems reasonable.

If you're relying on the microcontroller to send out the bitstream to drive these DACs to produce various frequencies then I would think that an arduino would be underpowered (well, perhaps not, but it would require good, efficient programming. A faster controller allows your code to be more sloppy and still achieve the effect.

I'd advise you to seek out any hackerspace that might be near you. The one I go to occasionally has people with a focus on music and electronics. you can simply google for "<location> hackerspace" to see what's near you. As a random example, if you were in Columbia, there's a hackerspace in Bogota.

If you can tell us a litle more about the control aspects and the range of frequencies you wish to produce (as well as the waveforms), we may be able to provide more suggestions.

As an example, here is a chip that can produce sine, square, and triangular waves and is controlled via a three wire serial bus. This would probably make it trivial to control 7 tone generators from someting as low in computing power as an arduino (you don't need to continually send out the bitstream to be converted to audio levels. This was the first chip I found, it's a bit expensive, but I'm sure there are cheaper devices (MAX038 is another option).

 

[Gryd3]

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9578
This is an odd chip that looks to manage sounds in a similar fashion to the Voder by Bell Labs : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voder


You should be able to make a number of sounds with it.