Acoustic events

I have spent some time during the summer building a new system for composing music. It is a bunch of stands that holds solenoids (electromagnetic pistons with a lever attached) and an object that makes a sound when the lever hits it. The solenoids can be controlled from maxMSP, using an arduino as interface. Here are the first prototypes I made.

Here I am building and playing around with 9 psc. of the final design in the apartment.

An Arduino Mega board works as interface to communicate with the Solenoids from maxMSP.

And here, the first concert at Musikhuset Aarhus on July 24. 2010 in the café area where people (mostly +60) enjoys salmon and expensive cake. It is a wonderful place to play concerts and the reverb of the big foyer really worked it's magic on the quite crappy objects, on which the solenoids knocked. It was cheap wine glasses and metal brackets and an old cookie jar.

here is a small video sample