BITO-COM: Brass Instrument Tone-Distorter

Created by: Ben Jackson

Creative Use of Technology Grant Winner BITO-COM

The first goal of this project is to create a means for enhancing the brass instrumentalist’s tone through electronic distortion. Using MAX/MSP/Jitter, the signal will be distorted in real time and played out through speakers connected to a computer. This allows the user to choose multiple distortion effects as well as have the ability to program when the effects will change. BITO-COM enables musicians to explore new sounds on their instruments and will provide them with more musical freedom.

Sine distortion effects experimented with involved wave alteration, frequency multiplying, and echoing effects. Other experimentation involved the integration of prerecorded music with a live performer.

The second part of project BITO-COM was to add electronics to a trumpet to visually enhance performances. LED lights were added to the trumpet, corresponding to the three valves. Each LED illuminates based on which valve is depressed.
In addition to the LED’s, each valve was to be equipped with electronics that measure displacement. The measurements from these sensors would have been read into an analog to digital converter, which plugs into the serial port of a computer. This data could have then been manipulated to correspond to the movement of a computer-generated trumpet made in Visual C++. The video display can then be added to an audio visualization behind it, thereby enhancing the performer’s music with entertaining visual representation.
 

Resources Used: Max/MSP