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Diploma project - a summary

Interface for arranging sound in space



Sound in 3D is far from a new invention, but due to technological development and more sophisticated equipment in private homes, there is going to be a much greater use of 3D sound in the future. There is a need for an interface for arranging sound in space that is more intuitive and easy to use than those available today.

In my diploma project I have developed an interface for arranging sound in space. Throughout this project one of my goals has been to explore new ways of interacting with a system for making sound compositions.

Several alternative solutions were considered and evaluated, and eventually a final concept was chosen and developed. This was evaluated with potential users and received good response.

I propose a solution inspired by a magic wand and the conductor's baton; a physical tool for placing sound in space. Furthermore, I show how a graphical user interface for this solution can be shaped for a vertical touch-screen.

The project has achieved the majority of its objectives, although further work is needed in the area of detailing, prototyping and testing the solution.

A detailed report can be downloaded from box.net.


Workflow: prepare sound, place sound and fine tune the composition


Context: sound recording studio with speakers in floor and ceiling


Sound is placed within the kinesphere of the body


The graphical user interface of the touch-screen


Mock-up of the sound pointer


The buttons and functionality of the sound pointer

Soundlines information page

The soundlines project (multi-touch table for manipulating sound samples) has now got it's own information page.

Article in Dagbladet

Article in Dagbladet 24. juni.

Some pictures

Working prototype video

Some examples from the working prototype we have made:
- "Soundlines" is an interface where you manipulate different samples.
- A simple drawing tool.

New concept for multi-touch table

The idea is that you choose a sound (a sample) from a palette. The chosen sound is represented by a symbol consisting of two circles with a line between them. If you place a finger in one of the circles you are able to move it.

As you move the circles the sound changes; the distance between the circles may control the velocity, the angle of the line may control a filter. Also the position at the screen may apply to a sound parameter, but this might not be necessary.

When you are happy with the sound you can pull down another one, and in this way you can add on sounds, or different people can control different sounds at the same time.

At first I thought it was a bad thing that the circles would snap together. But actually I think it can be quite fun creating spider-webs with many sounds changing as you move a circle.