Charles Nichols

The vBow: a virtual violin bow controller for mapping gesture to synthesis with haptic feedback

The vBow, a virtual violin bow musical controller, has been designed to provide the computer musician with most of the gestural freedom of a bow on a violin string. Four cable and servomotor systems allow for four degrees of freedom, including the lateral motion of a bow stroke across a string, the rotational motion of a bow crossing strings, the vertical motion of a bow approaching and pushing into a string, and the longitudinal motion of a bow travelling along the length of a string. Encoders, attached to the shaft of the servomotors, sense the gesture of the performer, through the rotation of the servomotor shafts, turned by the motion of the cables. The data from each encoder is mapped to a parameter in synthesis software of a bowed-string physical model. The software also sends control voltages to the servomotors, engaging them and the cables attached to them with a haptic feedback simulation of friction, vibration, detents and elasticity.

Genesis of the cube: The design and deployment of an hdla-based performance and research facility

The Cube is a recently built facility that features a high-density loudspeaker array. The Cube is designed to support spatial computer music research and performance, art installations, immersive environments, scientific research, and all manner of experimental formats and projects. We recount here the design process, implementation, and initial projects undertaken in the Cube during the years 2013–2015.

Brahms at the Piano: An Analysis of Data from the Brahms Cylinder

In 1889, Johannes Brahms recorded a segment of the first of his Ungarische Tanze (Hungarian Dances) in an arrangement for solo piano. The authors describe the analysis and reconstruction of this recording and examine the implications of this work as a contribution to the understanding of performance practices in the late nineteenth century.

Subjective listening tests: Perception and preference of simulated sound fields

Concert hall sound fields were simulated by architecture students and anechoic recordings were convolved to create auralizations in those simulated performance spaces. Then an architectural feature was altered digitally and a second track was auralized. College music students were recruited, tested for hearing loss, and brought to a low-reverberance room with a spatial sound array of 28 mounted speakers. They were asked to identify which of the two simulated tracks they prefer. We compared simulated performance spaces: (1) with four tiers of balconies vs with one tier of balcony; (2) with an over-stage canopy vs without a canopy; (3) with separate balcony boxes vs with a continuous balcony not fragmented by box walls; and (4) with a higher scattering coefficient vs a lower scattering coefficient. Those in the audience will be invited to judge preference between the tracks for themselves. The study will be framed by the extraordinary career arc of Bert Kinzey who engaged architecture students in the study ...