The Springs is a percussion instrument built from salvaged springs from cars and other industry. The springs are mounted directly on the machine.
How it works
- Springs as triggers
- Hitting a spring triggers a sample or a synthesized tone. The synthetic sound can be modulated by the spring’s own resonance.
- The sounds can be swapped during a performance.
- Spring resonance
- A pair of contact microphones pick up the vibrations of all the springs. That signal runs through a DSP effects chain, and can also modulate the synthetic sound.
- Lamps
- Each spring has a glow lamp that blinks when the spring is struck.
- Two audio systems
- Bela: an embedded Bela.io platform running custom C++ code.
- Max for Live: a Max4Live device in Ableton Live, which maps the springs differently and gives other sounds.
- The two systems work independently.
On stage
- Some of the springs trigger a burst from the flamethrower mounted in the machine.
- The springs can also change the lights on the machine.
Only sound from the Springs
