Multitouch continuous music controller in 2 dimensions based on an array of 6 linear hall effect sensors.

Inspired by the Haken Continuum continuous music controller I plan to build a small open version based on Arduino, an array of linear hall effect sensors and corresopnding super magnets.

This is a prototype with just 6 Allegro A1326 linear hall effect sensors hooked up to the six analog inputs of the Arduino UNO.

The position of the magnets (or better their magnetic fields) are estimated by solving a parabolic function through the measured values of three adjacent sensors, like here.

The position is sent via serial OSC to a small program on the linux desktop (serialinosc) which relays it to a given UDP port, where a synthesizer is listening (Supercollider in this case with VAMS (virtual analog modular synthesizer) as graphical frontend).

Source code for the linear OSC and the Arduino sample sketch (A1326) can be found in the subproject "serialinosc" at: lorck.sf.net

A Video of the patch in action and the visualized parabolic equation solving can be seen at vimeo, where X position is bound to pitch of square wave and Y position is bound to cutoff frequency of low pass filter.

Next prototype will be a custom PCB with 16 sensors for usage with the Arduino MUX shield.

Final prototype shall have as many as 64 sensors on a custom PCB with included ADCs and MUXs.