Specialising and Exhibiting

Week5-Expanded Studio Practice for Twenty-First Century Sound Artists

Bela is fast.

Bela is connected.

Bela is small.

Bela makes it easy to get started.

In this lesson, Allen and I were working on the collaboration between the Bela board and pure data. We were facing a lot of issues like the computer not working and the amplifier also having some troubleshooting. The happy sound program was very interesting. But finally, we got the job done, we finished connecting the digital output , digital input, analog input, and analog output which just took ages to check making every wire into every hole correctly. We were spending time on FM synthesiser but we just did not have enough time to get our heads around it.

I found it really hard to do one thing at a time and I always struggled with that. After finishing the lesson with Milo, I start to look at what artist would use Bela board for cause I am a bit confused at the moment.

Kuplen (The Dome) is a new digital musical instrument with Bela at its heart. Kuplen was designed by Marco Timossi, Gabriel Gustafsson, and Tommy Rushton in Copenhagen and has approachability, simplicity, and tactility at its core. In this post, the makers explain how they designed this great-looking instrument which has loads of expressive sonic potential.

Kuplen’s physical interface is a dome of acrylic slats with copper wire woven through it. The rows and columns of the grid are connected to a Trill Craft sensor to create a bespoke capacitive touch surface. Kuplen combines touch position on the grid with the intensity of the reading on each Craft channel to create a 3D input space.The simulated string and bow are complemented by a simulated finger (a mass-spring damping element) that can be applied to the string using the columns of the grid, then moved around by tilting the dome. We used nonlinear models for the bow and finger; coupled with a really long virtual string, Kuplen produces all manner of crunchy sounds, pitch glides and harmonics. It’s great for deep, rumbly textures, but with a bit of practice it’s possible to play something melodic too.