The sound of touch: physical manipulation of digital sound

The Sound of Touch is a new tool for real-time capture and sensitive physical stimulation of sound samples using digital convolution. Our hand-held wand can be used to (1) record sound, then (2) play back the recording by brushing, scraping, striking or otherwise physically manipulating the wand against physical objects. During playback, the recorded sound is continuously filtered by the acoustic interaction of the wand and the material being touched. The Sound of Touch enables a physical and continuous sculpting of sound that is typical of acoustic musical instruments and interactions with natural objects and materials, but not available in GUI-based tools or most electronic music instruments. This paper reports the design of the system and observations of thousands of users interacting with it in an exhibition format. Preliminary user feedback suggests future applications to foley, professional sound design, and musical performance. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.2. [Information In...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: CHI
• Authors: David Merrill, Hayes Raffle, Roberto Aimi
• Keywords: CHI 2008, Human Computer Interaction, Keywords Sound Design, Professional Sound Design, Record Sound