Welcome to my gallery of audio/visual creations, I like to call SoundStrokes. What are SoundStrokes? Well I created a program that takes input from an electric guitar and the signal is computed to get the frequency and amplitude which is than used to draw onto a digital canvas. It is part of my final year project in Digital Humanities & Information Technology at UCC. Below are a few examples that I have uploaded to Youtube to give you a sense of how the program works and these digital audio/visual painting can be displayed.

SoundStrokes – Six

The above drawing involves the volume dictating the size of the line. As you can see it starts as a circle and then draws out from the circle as a line getting smaller. It is also using the full use of the guitar and the colour/sound associations are based on a calculation of the frequency of light and sound.

SoundStrokes – Five

This is another drawing from the test program using only the first octave and the drawing style similar to that on Concrete Art. The colours used are similar to those used on Itten’s colour wheel and the lower notes are associated with the darker colours and higher notes with lighter colours.

SoundStrokes – Four

The version uses circles that draw on the canvas and is still kind of rough with a few kinks to be ironed out. The riff is one I wrote myself and its a fast, busy riff that really bring life to the canvas.

SoundStrokes – Three

This version of my program is one I am experimenting on, it uses volume to draw lines that come out as circles with a louder volume creating a bigger line. It draws in different areas of the canvas, certain degree away from the last draw shape. I am just doodling in this piece and you might recognise the guitar riff at the start as “Bleeding Me” by Metallica.

SoundStrokes – Two

This is another demo of my SoundStrokes program in the same set up of the first demo. Similar to the SoundStrokes – One, it is only using the first octave of the guitar and is resembling the Concrete art style. I hope to upload more demos of my program using the all of the guitar and in different styles. Check back for more SoundStrokes later.

Soundtrokes – One

This is the first demo of the SoundStrokes program, for this iteration of the program it is set to only pick up frequencies in the first octave – E0 to D#0. This was because, as part of my FYP I was testing to see if peoples association would become strong with use of this program. It also is based on the minimal art style of Concrete made famous by Reinhardt and Bill.