Dan Trueman

Why a laptop orchestra

In 2005, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), an ensemble of fifteen laptop-based meta-instruments, began its first season. In this article, the author explores the motivations for starting a laptop orchestra, both in musical and cultural terms, and some of the aesthetic, technical, and compositional issues that face those interested in working with such an ensemble.

Alternative voices for electronic sound

Through the design and construction of unique sound diffusion structures, the nature of electronic sound can be reinvented. When allied with new sensor technologies, these structures offer alternative modes of interaction with techniques of sonic computation. This paper describes several recent applications of Geosonic Speakers (multichannel, outward‐radiating geodesic speaker arrays) and Sensor‐Speaker‐Arrays (SenSAs: combinations of various sensor devices with outward‐radiating multichannel speaker arrays). Geosonic Speakers, building on previous studies of the directivity of acoustic instruments (the NBody Project), attempt to reproduce some of the diffusion characteristics of conventional acoustic instruments; they engage the reverberant qualities of performance spaces, and allow electronic and acoustic instruments to blend more readily. In collaboration with the U.S. Enclosure Company, over a dozen Geosonic Speakers were produced, varying in size from 8 to 14 in. Their use in the performance and reco...

2009: A History of Hemispherical Speakers at Princeton, Plus a DIY Guide

This paper gives a historical overview of the development of alternative sonic display systems at Princeton University; in particular, the design, construction, and use in live performance of a series of spherical and hemispherical speaker systems. We also provide a DIY guide to constructing the latest series of loudspeakers that we are currently using in our research and music making.