Towards An Interface For Music Mixing Based On Smart Tangibles And Multitouch
Steven Gelineck, Daniel Overholt, Morten Büchert, Jesper Andersen · VBN Forskningsportal (Aalborg Universitet) · 2013
This paper presents the continuous work towards the development of an interfacefor music mixing targeted towards expert sound technicians and producers. Themixing interface uses a stage metaphor mapping scheme where audio channels arerepresented as digital widgets on a 2D surface. These can be controlled bymulti touch or by smart tangibles, which are tangible blocks with embeddedsensors. The smart tangibles developed for this interface are able to sense howthey are grasped by the user. The paper presents the design of the mixinginterface including the smart tangible as well as a preliminary user studyinvolving a hands-on focus group session where 5 different control technologiesare contrasted and discussed. Preliminary findings suggest that smart tangibleswere preferred, but that an optimal interface would include a combination oftouch, smart tangibles and an extra function control tangible for extending thefunctionality of the smart tangibles. Finally, the interface should incorporateboth an edit and mix mode - the latter displaying very limited visual feedbackin order to force users to focus their attention to listening instead of theinterface.