The Adder-Pad is an audio-visual instrument, built using the Max/MSP programming environment. A 2-dimensional screen, referred to during development as the sketch-pad allows the user to draw shapes with the mouse, a graphics tablet, or for best, most fluid results, a Korg KP3 Kaoss-Pad. I also VERY HIGHLY recommend using a MIDI Controller, such as the in-expensive Behringer BCF2000 to control the modulating algorithm, as an amount of subtle control of multiple parameters will be necessary for good use of the Adder-Pad.
The 2D gestures from the Adder-Pad's sketch-pad are transferred into stereo audio by triggering over 700 oscillators; sine, square, sawtooth, or triangle waveforms - or use any 4096-sample audio buffer as a wavetable. The sketch-pad is also dynamic, so the syneasthetic gestures you create are also visually & audibly modulated by a 2D energy propagating algorithm that creates swirling visual echoes; controlled in realtime by 5 parameters effecting the speed and swell of the dynamics.
—«o: ADDER-PAD GUI :o»—
—«o: MIDI CONTROL OF ADDER-PAD :o»—
—«o: LISTEN WITH YOUR EYES:o»—
The dynamic audio modulation of the Adder-Pad corresponds directly to the visual dynamics on the screen; this is because the audio data is taken directly from the screen data - so what you see, you hear. In this way, visualisations on the left of the screen are heard as audio in the left speaker, and the right-side in the right speaker; visual data in the top of the screen is (by default) heard as high frequency, with low-frequencies occupying the bottom of the screen. So, the way the graphical data is represented in the audio domain as similar to the way the brain perceives sounds, and has strong relationships to the way audio is represented visually in EQ's & effects plug-ins.
The Adder-Pad algorithm treats each cell in its viable size 3-plane matrix as a tension-spring that stretches and rebounds around a zero-point. When all springs are at rest, they represent the colour black; when all planes are at (or beyond) the full-stretch of the colour resolution, you will see white in that area. As all 3 planes can be sketched with independently, millions of swirling-blurring colours are possible with only a few gestural strokes.
—«o: DOWNLOADABLE FILES :o»—
The available downloads include a Max Runtime version of the Adder-Pad software, a basic user manual on how to set up the Adder-Pad & start making sound-movies. There is also a patch development file for those interested in the background & progress of the patch through the length of the project.
—«o: ADDER-PAD MEDIA PLAYER :o»—
