Sonic Scanner

The Sonic Scanner is a new instrument for music performance that turns drawings, pictures, etc. into sound/experimental music. It uses an old handheld scanner with the electronics hacked to turn the visual scan-line into an audio waveform, so you can hear whatever you decide to scan translated into sound. I added a few more bells and whistles on top such as pressure sensors to control various parameters (volume, pitch, etc) as well as making it wireless (with a rechargeable battery).

There are four modes you can use to translate pictures into sound. The first mode, "Waveform" turns the optical scanline directly into sound by literally going through the brightness levels at an audio rate. The second mode, "Spectrum" translates the optical spectrum into an audio spectrum. It does this by mapping the scanline onto the frequency domain using a FFT (Fast Fourier Transform). The third mode, "Rhythm" is similar to the first in that it directly maps the scanline to audio, but at a much slower rate in order to pull out the rhythmic content of the scanned material. The last mode, "Sampler" lets you record a sound and then manipulate its playback with the Sonic Scanner.

Below is a preliminary video clip showing these 4 modes:

  • Sonic Scanner - 9MB mp4, QuickTime 6.4 required.

  • Sonic Scanner - 10MB mov, for older versions of QuickTime.

    Publications

    The Sonic Scanner and the Graphonic Interface
    Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (Miami, Florida, 1-6 November 2004).

    Visually Controlled Synthesis using the Sonic Scanner and the Graphonic Interface
    Proceedings of the 117th Audio Engineering Society Convention (San Francisco, California, 28-31 October 2004).