The TOOB is a unique wireless electronic wind controller - a 'hyper-trumpet' if you will. I built it in 2007 to harness some of my skills as a trumpet player in the digital music realm.
The TOOB consists of a module for each hand joined by a 1" diameter flexible vinyl hose. The left hand module contains three pressure sensors and the accelerometer. The right hand module contains the breath sensor, the button and the remaining three pressure sensors.
The sonic idea behind the TOOB is the ability to sculpt the frequency response of noisy pre-recoded or on-the-fly-sampled audio loops, along with various unorthodox looping, pitch shifting, and 'glitching' abilities, creating punctuated soundscapes. The TOOB is designed to place a wide variety of types of sounds at the performer's disposal instantly: harsh or calming, noisy or pitched, low or high, staccato or ambient, comic or tragic.
The TOOB is equally at home as a solo electroacoustic performance instrument, as part of a duo with a horn player or vocalist, or in an "electro-psycho-free-jazz" band at a club.
The TOOB's visuals, made to be projected behind the performer, are colorful 3D meshes textured with video that are shaped and contorted by the motion and breath of the performer over a video background. A simpler module also responds to the audio input of any sound source the performer can sample from on stage.
The TOOB collects performance data using a piezo breath sensor, a 3-axis accelerometer, 6 Force Sensing Resistors and a button. The analog sensors are digitized by a PIC micro-controller at approximately 8-bit precision and transmitted to a laptop running MaxMSP via bluetooth serial.
While the basic structure and capabilities of the TOOB software remain consistent, I am constantly tweaking and adapting the software as I discover interesting new ideas or inadequacies during performance.
The TOOB's visuals are created with Jitter using OpenGL.
Dissonant Consonants - 4:16 | Arvid Tomayko-Peters and Hannah Lewis | Live at Tazza Caffe, Providence | 2008.
Metropolis - Club Tune No. 12 - 1:28 | (Excerpt) The TOOB sampling the voice of Hannah Lewis | Live at Tazza Caffe, Providence | May 13, 2008.
The UHER StereoMix MIDI Controller is an old UHER StereoMix mixer converted into a MIDI controller. The analog circuitry was removed and replaced with a PIC micro-controller. In addition to converting the 5 faders, 2 knobs and 5 switches into MIDI controllers, the retrofitted mixer also features 2 analog light sensors, a force sensor under the top casing and a foot-switch.
The UHER StereoMix MIDI Controller is used primarily as optional additional control for TOOB effects and expression or as a controller for video on other projects.
The Amphibious Destroyer Trumpet is a standard trumpet fitted with a dual-axis accelerometer, a plethora of buttons and a foot-pedal created by hacking a USB game controller. Up-down and roll motions of the horn combine with amplitude, frequency and tempo tracking to control complex textures that are generated by, and react to, the performer's trumpet playing and associated gestures. Both unprocessed trumpet and electronic sound derived completely from the current performance are heard together. A flexible routing structure allows for on-the-fly recombinations of the software's components. A piece created for this instrument called Float 2 includes live reactive video created by compositing a number of short video clips of different types in realtime in response to the musician's performance (see image inset at left). Custom software created with Max/MSP/Jitter. Performed at Pixilerations [v.2], artSTRAND Gallery in Provincetown, Brown University, a Nam June Paik memorial dinner in NYC, Chingoli in Le Marche, Italia, and Ethan Cohen Fine Arts in NYC.
The Percussicube is a 3' x 3' x 3' cube made of PVC tubes with 8 drum sensors. It is played from within using drum sticks and ball-peen hammers, playing back samples and synthesized sounds based on 3D positioning an object controlled by the impacts on the cube's frame. Software created in Max/MSP. The performance, inspired by frustration with the United States's foreign policy, culminates in the dismemberment of the cube section of the instrument with hammers, leaving a pile of debris that make agitated electronic sounds when kicked. Images from the Percussicube's first performance.
The percussicube live - Nam June Paik memorial dinner in NYC.