Spatialized polyphonic granulator
The "JoyStyx" is an embedded acoustic instrument that uses five video game joysticks to interact with a polyphonic granular synthesizer. The data from each joystick is serialized with an Arduino and mapped to parameters for grain-size, pitch-shift, scrubbing, and spatialization via a Pure Data patch running on a Raspberry Pi. So far, four of these instruments have been fabricated, each with a unique timbre and range to allow for ensemble performance. These instruments have three speakers, one mounted to the front and each of the side faces to allow for spatialized sound around the instrument. A larger speaker is mounted to the bottom face to boost the lower range of each instrument.
Granular Quartet is the first piece composed for this instrument. The piece is written for four JoyStyx, granulating samples of bassoon, bass clarinet, oboe, and flute respectively. The piece is composed as a slow progressing fugue and aimed to showcase a variety of the instruments' timbres and capabilities.
Granular Quartet, performed at LaTex 2016 hosted by UT Austin. Thank to Chase Mitchusson, Matthew Williams, Michael Blandino, and Anthony Marasco for their beautiful performance! Conducted by Dr. Christopher McCardle.
JoyStyx: Spruce, custom PCB, 3D-printed bassports. The custom PCB was designed in Fritzing and cleanly routes all joystick pins to an Arduino Micro to serialize and format data before sending it to the Raspberry Pi for processing.