limestick

I've created a "performance controller" for laptop musicians for my capstone project at Indiana University. The project focuses on improving audience engagement through the design and creation of a performer and performance centric interface. The interface is a minimal visual obstacle for the audience, while providing for a range of expressive control for the musician. The device itself is a modified microphone stand with several types of embedded sensors and contols. Here's an excerpt from a paper I'm writing (pending publication):

Musical performances using laptops as a sole performance interface can suffer from a lack of audience engagement. Due to the limitations of gesture variety, magnitude, and overall lack of expressive performer behaviors, the audience members are often unable to associate the acoustical sounds of the music with the performer. In the absence of a compelling visual point of reference, audience members accustomed to the standard conventions of contemporary musical performance can have negative responses or a lack of interest in the performance, regardless of their interest in the music. These negative responses adversely affect the engagement level of the spectator, and detract from the performance experience as a whole, limiting the effectiveness and potential of laptop music as performance art. This paper explores the domain of computer/electronic music interfaces and identifies processes, interfaces, and methods relevant to audience engagement with an emphasis on improving "the performer-audience connection". It also describes the design process and concepts behind the "Limestick" (Laptop Interface for Musical Expression Stick) musical controller, a contribution towards the goal of improving audience engagement through performer-audience connectivity in laptop based musical performances.

performer, audience, instrument, music

A musical performance can be thought of as a framework of relationships between the performer, audience, music, and instrument. Each entity in the framework has a relationship to the other that can greatly influence the quality of the performance, regardless of whether or not the audience actually enjoys the music.

Oftentimes audiences have no clue as to how the musicians are creating or manipulating their music on their laptop. The limestick improves the audience's understanding of the instrument's role in the creation of music through the simple and expressive gestures required for its use. The instrument has a minimal, yet essential profile in the performance, and its use on stage makes the performer the focal point for the show. All of these qualities makes it an effective and practical performance controller.

limestick system overview

A number of sensors (Thanks to Phidgets, Inc. ) and other related electronic components make up the limestick. Here's a brief summary of the more important parts...

An accelerometer sensor in the top of the stand measures tilt in 360 degrees. This signal can be mapped to any number of musical parameters using conventional MIDI control channel signals. This sensor affords broad sweeping movements for the musician, which can be used to great effect in performance.

A grip sensor allows the musician to squeeze the microphone stand, which maps the strength of the squeeze onto a musical parameter. This interaction method proved to be useful for nuancing a particular voice in the performance with distorition or reverb.




A set of sliders allow for discrete changes to musical parameters. These controls come in handy when a musician wants to "set" a parameter without it reverting back to a base setting (which happens with the tilt and grip sensors). The base of the unit also houses the analog to digital converter box, which forms MIDI channel messages from the control voltages returned from the sensors. I used a modified Doepfer PC-16 control board as my analog to digital converter, and it worked fairly well.

performance

I had the opportunity to work with two local Bloomington artists, DJ DIZI , and Ligyro , who have helped me develop the prototype. They also participated in a concert performance at the LovingHeart Center in downtown Bloomington. I have a clip from the concert available here.

limestick system interface

The limestick can be plugged into any computer with a midi port (or a usb port with an adaptor). Once the limestick is plugged in, it is possible to map the midi signals from the limestick sensors and controls onto nearly any type of musical parameter imaginable. Several digital audio workstation applications, including Reason, Ableton Live, and Reaktor proved to be very easy to integrate with the limestick. I have a demonstration video here where DJ DIZI uses the limestick to control Reaktor.

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