Bubbaboard and Mommaspeaker: Creating Digital Tonal Sounds from an Acoustic Percussive Instrument

This paper describes the transformation of an everyday object into a digital musical instrument. By tracking hand movements and tilt on one of two axes, the Bubbaboard, a transformed handheld washboard, allows a user to play scales at different octaves while simultaneously offering the ability to use its inherent acoustic percussive qualities. Processed sound is fed to the Mommaspeaker, which creates physically generated vibrato at a speed determined by tilting the Bubbaboard on its second axis. Keywords Gesture based controllers, Musical Performance, MIDI, Accelerometer, Microcontroller, Contact Microphone

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: NIME
• Authors: Derek Wang
• Keywords: Acoustic Percussive Qualities, Digital Musical Instrument, Handheld Washboard, Music, NIME 2005