Creative programming with sound

How can we use sound to augment an art piece, or an installation? In this crash course we'll experiment with sound design and learn how to program our own sounds using microcontrollers and sensors. We'll be using the Arduino environment and the Daisy Seed microcontroller to synthesize the sound.

‍

Part one

Fundamentals of synthesis

We will start off with learning the basics of synthesis using a program called VCV Rack. We'll learn how sound works, and what we can do with oscillators, filters and noise (hint - quite a lot!).

Learning goals

• Understand subtractive synthesis signal flow
• Be able to patch a subtractive synth voice in VCV Rack

Activities

• Exploring the VCV Rack environment
• Prototyping a synth in VCV Rack

Time

10:00 - 12:00

Part two

Soldering and programming

Now that we understand the fundamentals of synthesis, let's solder our own interface and run a couple of programs on it. We'll learn how to solder the components and program our sound in Arduino using the Daisyduino library.

Learning goals

• Understand how electronic boards (PCB) are constructed
• Understand the basics of Arduino programming
• Understand how microcontrollers work
• Be able to read Arduino and Daisyduino code, hack and modify it
• Be able to solder electronic components on PCB

Activities

• Programming the basic signal flow
• Mapping knob values
• Troubleshooting

Time

13:00 - 17:00