Music and Audio Technology Projects to Stir your
Imagination
Adrian Freed
Introduction
The following speculative projects were created to stimulate
students into designing with the tools and ideas of future
technology. The overall puzzle is: what is the driving force:
technology or applications?
Video Game for the Blind
Assumption: The visual channel is central for
successful entertainment applications of media technology.
Design an interactive "Videogame" experience for blind people.
Identify ways to initially capture players attention (so they
feed money into the slot). Explain how your design keeps the
players attention, avoids boredom and encourages them to keep
feeding coins in the slot.
A Truly Lasting Electronic Musical
Instrument.
Assumption: Electronic musical instruments will
always have a short market life (of a few years) before new
models eclipse the old.
This century's mastery of metal, plastic, sand (silicon chips)
and computational abstraction (software and simulation) has been
applied to create many wonderful new musical instruments. Like
many other products of our time, customers have developed an
appetite for novelty in the form of new sounds and packaging.
Ironically, this need for novelty works against any electronic
musical instrument lasting the many centuries that successful
traditional instruments do. For a community of composers and
performers to rally around an instrument, they must know that it
will be around for more than a just a few years.
Design what will become the first lasting digital musical
instrument. Decide whether it will have a user interface like a
piano, a guitar, a monophonic instrument such as the saxophone,
or something completely new. What will the instrument sound like?
How will it be controlled? Why will the design last hundreds of
years? What distinguishes it from conventional instruments?
A Disposable Audio Recorder
Assumption: customers need to own their own
equipment and medium to record and store sound and visual
materials.
One result of technology of mass production is functionality
from products which cost practically nothing to manufacture. One
example of this is the disposable or "single use" still camera.
Interestingly disposable cameras are neither thrown away nor are
they used only once. Their parts are reused.
Design a portable, disposable audio recorder. What would
people use one for? Identify the key technologies needed to pull
this off. Does the audio have to be stored in the device? Do
current technologies simply need to be cheap enough or are new
technologies needed ? How many years will it be before this is
possible? Will a disposable camcorder be possible?
3d Direct Manipulation Sound Post
Production
Assumption: People will always be satisfied with
cartoon-like two dimensional superposition of sound tracks.
Sounds combine in rich ways in three dimensional space.
What are the technological difficulties that prevent us from
combining sounds in the studio the way they are in the real
world? Design the user interface to a 3d sound post production
facility. Identify the primary elements to be manipulated, their
3d graphical representations and how users interact with them.
Who would use such a facility?
Media Free Music and Video Stores
Assumption: People need to visit stores to pick out
music and video.
Develop a business plan for a store which rents music (and/or
video) material over networks rather than requiring customers to
pick up physical media from them. Figure out how much customers
are willing to pay for this (Hint: pizza delivery). How many
channels of playback does a store need to stay in business? What
services can a small mom-and-pop store provide that would allow
them to compete with a well integrated chain of stores?
MultiMedia One Man (person!) Band
Assumption: You need huge trucks and a road crew to
entertain large audiences.
Design a one person multimedia road show. Your constraints are
severe. You have to be able to check the gear onto a plane.
Sketch the content of the show, how the performer controls the
lighting, visual and audio material. What is the role of the
audience? "The show must go on." How do you make the system
reliable enough? How does this system accommodate for different
venues?
The Demise of special purpose hardware for
Music Synthesizers
Assumption: To achieve sufficient signal processing
performance, music synthesizers require custom built, special
purpose hardware.
The performance available from new general purpose processors
such as the R4400, PowerPC and Pentium makes it possible to
implement interesting sound synthesis algorithms as programs in a
high level language. Write a program in your favorite high level
language for additive sound synthesis: A bank of oscillators is
required. Provide control over the amplitude and phase of the
sine wave output of each oscillator. Write a version which is as
clear and easy to understand as possible. Then, if time permits,
create the fastest version you can for a processor you are
familiar with.
Auditory "Opera Glasses" for Ultimate Concert
Sound
Assumption: You have to use sounds in air to
communicate to the audience
If you have attended a large public gathering or music
concert, you will have noticed several unfortunate results of the
fact that the speed of sound in air is much slower than the speed
of light. The main problem is that the gestures of the performers
do not appear synchronized, just as thunder and lightening do not
appear to happen simultaneously. Another effect delayed sounds
have is feedback or howling.
Explore the idea of handing out headphones to everybody in the
audience, to provide sound. What features could these headphones
provide other than higher quality correctly synchronized sounds?
What features are needed to provide the best of home listening
and the concert experience?
Distance Music Education
Assumption: Your music teacher needs to be in the
same room with you.
Prepare a piano lesson to be given by a famous pianist to
enthusiastic students all over the world. Each student is at home
with a special piano with a MIDI connection, such as the Yamaha
Disklavier. Key presses from the student can be transmitted to
the teacher. The teachers gestures are broadcast to the students
piano's? How will the students learn fingerings? How can the
teacher prepare exercises adapted to the individual needs of
students?
The Merging of Audio and Video
Assumption: The market for films and video is
different to that for records. Each requires its own products,
artists and stores.
It used to be simple: Video's were rented from video stores
and CD's were bought from record stores. Now record store chains
such as Tower rent movies and video stores rent music video's.
Successful video clips on MTV help sell recorded music. It used
to be that the physical media for film and video was different
from those for audio. Now compressed video and high quality still
images (Photo-CD) are stored on CD's. Digital audio is stored on
tape for rotary video head technology (DAT).
Will the video, film, still photography and audio markets
remain distinct or be swallowed into a single multimedia market?
Will there always be a role for audio only and purely musical
expression? What effect will multimedia technology have on future
music?
The Demise of Print, TV and Radio
Assumption: The major reason traditional print
media, TV and Radio hold their own against the onslaught of
interactive digital media is that they look and sound better.
Identify what characterizes high audio quality (production
value). Is there anything inherent in the technological
infrastructure (broadcast, mass distribution?) that gives
traditional media an unbeatable advantage over interactive
digital media? If you think they will always coexist explain what
influence they will have on each other. Otherwise when do you
think will be the doomsday for traditional media.
The Demise of All Media
Assumption: Now that we have reproducing media,
they are here to stay.
The reproducing media (books, faxes, CD's, video) may
represent a temporary enthusiasm in world history. The problem
they address is to amplify individual expression to an audience
which is distant in space and time. Describe how large scale
telepresence technology can address this need more effectively
than reproducing media. Hint: Calculate how many performers do
you need to have so that an individual can find a live
performance of any play of Shakespeare in any language at any
time of day or night. Will there be an underprivileged class
without access? What will be the most successful services offered
by telepresence?