Hi,

last week I had a concert of music for flute and electronics. Since the hall was small enough with friendly acoustics, I decided to try to do everything on my own, without a sound engineer - just to see if it works. I let know about some tricks and solutions if they turn useful to others as well.

In Kaija Saariaho's "L'aconisme de l'aile" I needed to control two parameters - the amount of harmonized sound and reverb. I put a board with two IR proximity sensors to the floor next to my left foot. I controlled one parameter with shifting the rim part of the foot closer or further to the sensor, other parameter witht he heel part of the foot (the foot positions coud be thus something like / , \ , .|, , |.. etc) Although not very exact, It worked pretty well.

(as for reverb, I found a beautiful one, $xrvb2s, from    http://www.csounds.com/jmc/ -> Processors -> Reverb macro. Thanks, John!)

The sensors were read and forwarded to Csound with arduino. The sheet music was displayed on a separate screen with Processing. To turn the pages I had a button close to my other foot - short press - next page, long - previous (for any case).

In Emanuele Casale's "Studio 2b" I needed to be very exactly together with the phonogram. Csound played the track and sent signal on every beat of the music to Processing. Processing displayed a small moving red line on top of every beat in the score and turned pages automatically. So I knew exactly, where the music was.

Ton Bruynel's "Serene" for flute and soundtrack is written in proportional notation adding timestamps after every 5 seconds for coordination. I displayed the timecode of the playing soundtrack to the screen together with the sheet music. Very comfortable again.

Tatjana Kozlova's "Doors 1" had to trigger some sound clips here and there . To start them (or to move to next or previous index) I had another button under my right foot connected to arduino.

It was a lot of preparation and stress on the concert, but everything worked!

If someone is interested on the sketches or csd-s, I can send, of course.

greetings,

tarmo

PS It was a part of series "Lieing concerts" - the public listened to the music on mattrasses on the floor and enjoyed all the event very much.

Sure,

I attach two csd-s, according processing sketches and arduino sketch that took care of the hardware. The code is a bit messy but hopefully still readable and helpful.

best regards,

tarmo

On Wednesday 24 April 2013 13:11:02 thorin kerr wrote:

HI Tarmo

I'd be interested to see your sketches and CSD's. I'm preparing for a concert of Stockhausen's Mantra for two ring modulated piano's, and considering making my own knob controllers > arduino > csound. 

Thorin

On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 8:07 PM, Tarmo Johannes <tarmo.johannes@otsakool.edu.ee> wrote:

Hi,

last week I had a concert of music for flute and electronics. Since the hall was small enough with friendly acoustics, I decided to try to do everything on my own, without a sound engineer - just to see if it works. I let know about some tricks and solutions if they turn useful to others as well.

In Kaija Saariaho's "L'aconisme de l'aile" I needed to control two parameters - the amount of harmonized sound and reverb. I put a board with two IR proximity sensors to the floor next to my left foot. I controlled one parameter with shifting the rim part of the foot closer or further to the sensor, other parameter witht he heel part of the foot (the foot positions coud be thus something like / , \ , .|, , |.. etc) Although not very exact, It worked pretty well.

(as for reverb, I found a beautiful one, $xrvb2s, from    http://www.csounds.com/jmc/ -> Processors -> Reverb macro. Thanks, John!)

The sensors were read and forwarded to Csound with arduino. The sheet music was displayed on a separate screen with Processing. To turn the pages I had a button close to my other foot - short press - next page, long - previous (for any case).

In Emanuele Casale's "Studio 2b" I needed to be very exactly together with the phonogram. Csound played the track and sent signal on every beat of the music to Processing. Processing displayed a small moving red line on top of every beat in the score and turned pages automatically. So I knew exactly, where the music was.

Ton Bruynel's "Serene" for flute and soundtrack is written in proportional notation adding timestamps after every 5 seconds for coordination. I displayed the timecode of the playing soundtrack to the screen together with the sheet music. Very comfortable again.

Tatjana Kozlova's "Doors 1" had to trigger some sound clips here and there . To start them (or to move to next or previous index) I had another button under my right foot connected to arduino.

It was a lot of preparation and stress on the concert, but everything worked!

If someone is interested on the sketches or csd-s, I can send, of course.

greetings,

tarmo

PS It was a part of series "Lieing concerts" - the public listened to the music on mattrasses on the floor and enjoyed all the event very much.