The JoyStyx: A Quartet of Embedded Acoustic Instruments

Matthew Blessing, and Edgar Berdahl

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

The JoyStyx Quartet is a series of four embedded acoustic instruments. Each of these instruments is a five-voice granular synthesizer which processes a different sound source to give each a unique timbre and range. The performer interacts with these voices individually with five joysticks positioned to lay under the performer's fingertips. The JoyStyx uses a custom-designed printed circuit board. This board provides the joystick layout and connects them to an Arduino Micro, which serializes the ten analog X/Y position values and the five digital button presses. This data controls the granular and spatial parameters of a Pure Data patch running on a Raspberry Pi 2. The nature of the JoyStyx construction causes the frequency response to be coloured by the materials and their geometry, leading to a unique timbre. This endows the instrument with a more ``analog'' or ``natural'' sound, despite relying on computer-based algorithms. In concert, the quartet performance with the JoyStyx may potentially be the first performance ever with a quartet of Embedded Acoustic Instruments.

Citation:

Matthew Blessing, and Edgar Berdahl. 2017. The JoyStyx: A Quartet of Embedded Acoustic Instruments. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1176246

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{mblessing2017,
 abstract = {The JoyStyx Quartet is a series of four embedded acoustic instruments. Each of these instruments is a five-voice granular synthesizer which processes a different sound source to give each a unique timbre and range. The performer interacts with these voices individually with five joysticks positioned to lay under the performer's fingertips.  The JoyStyx uses a custom-designed printed circuit board. This board provides the joystick layout and connects them to an Arduino Micro, which serializes the ten analog X/Y position values and the five digital button presses. This data controls the granular and spatial parameters of a Pure Data patch running on a Raspberry Pi 2.  The nature of the JoyStyx construction causes the frequency response to be coloured by the materials and their geometry, leading to a unique timbre. This endows the instrument with a more ``analog'' or ``natural'' sound, despite relying on computer-based algorithms. In concert, the quartet performance with the JoyStyx may potentially be the first performance ever with a quartet of Embedded Acoustic Instruments.},
 address = {Copenhagen, Denmark},
 author = {Matthew Blessing and Edgar Berdahl},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1176246},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 pages = {271--274},
 publisher = {Aalborg University Copenhagen},
 title = {The JoyStyx: A Quartet of Embedded Acoustic Instruments},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2017/nime2017_paper0051.pdf},
 year = {2017}
}