09-10 Interaction Design Lab 2 Projects

There are a lot of good libraries developed from Processing regarding audio. We checked various libraries before settling with Ess r2. The Minim library is complete but is complicated for a novice user and the purpose of sound in our prototype is simple. The Sonia library was also considered. At the end the Ess r2 library was simple enough and provided what we needed.

The Ess r2 library according to its website allows sound sample data to be loaded or streamed, real-time generation or just playback. Our main necessities were panning the sound and gain control. The pan was necessary for shifting the sound of the steps left and right. This way we could create the illusion of someone walking. To create the illusion of someone getting closer or getting further away we increased or decreased the volume. Before considering the volume control we tried using reverb.

Using reverb wasn’t that simple. The sound was hard to keep clean. When the reverb is applied the sound has a darker and dirtier quality. The code gave a particular problem that could be seen as an interesting effect if the project was about generating textures with sound. When the reverb was reapplied it didn’t canceled out the previous reverb but instead it created a layer. This layering created a wall of sound that eventually becomes a disturbing noise.

The Ess r2 library is quite simple to use. There are key functions that make up for the core structure of the code. Each file is controlled using the AudioChannel class. It is declared inside the sketch.

The panning is controlled using the following function:

The values go from -1 to 1. Right is assigned to 1 and left is -1. This means the pan goes from left to right.

The volume is controlled using the volume reference. It’s quite simple to use. The volume is declared inside the function.

This library worked well for our purposes and it was easy to understand. Highly recommended for managing simple audio files that accompanied interactions.