[sdiy] quadraphonic panning (probably OT at this point)

[Chromatest J. Pantsmaker]

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 2:03 AM, Michael Zacherl.
<sdiy-mz01 at blauwurf.info> wrote:

> That's my initial motivation to get into micro controller programming (see other thread).
> We will play on a festival in October this year with a focus on a extensive multi channel speaker system.
> ("play the room")
> However, performing with hands and feet and controlling the balance of at least four channels at the
> same moment is a bit tough in our musical context.
> So I thought of a couple of VCAs (not sure about 2164) which are controlled by a µC which reads a joystick,
> provides "scenes" (stored settings) fades between them etc.
> But I'm afraid I won't manage to build that within the next five weeks, so I'll need a different approach.
>
>   Michael.

We did it using ableton-live and a wireless microsoft X-box controller
using a PC adapter.  My mate wrote the code to interpret the different
button pushes, etc.  We chose the xbox controller thanks to its dual
joysticks and analog triggers, erognomic layout and lots of other
button options.  The two triggers are actually one controller which we
used as a cross fader for quick changes, though could also be used for
positive and negative resonance, or what have you.  We could choose an
input and route it to anyplace in the sound-space and lock it there
(with a joystick button push) and swap to a different source.  Two
sources could be moved at a time thanks to the two joysticks.  A macro
would bring all sources back to a default state.  Originally the
default was a basic quad-mono but then we decided that we like the
effect better having it true stereo out of the "front" speakers, and
then the sound would "jump" to the back and move around when the
sticks were activated.

The only bad thing is that it *does* add a noticeable amount of delay
due to the computer processing all of the sound.

We only had 4 speakers that we were moving the sound into though.
More discrete destinations and it gets more complex.

-- 
.sig
-Chromatest J. Pantsmaker
http://www.chromatest.net