NOTE 01 / ACOUSTICS
Can a string listen to itself?
What happens when vibration is fed back into an instrument—and where beautiful sustain reaches its limits.
Read articleFIELD NOTES / SOUND & MATTER
Sound & music
technology journal.
How can we sustain a string, connect gesture to sound, and record an unfamiliar instrument? Eleven articles explore the studio’s practice through detailed explanations, practical checks, and discussion of 21 arXiv papers.
NOTE 02 / INTERFACES
Gesture first. Sensor second.
How observing a performer’s movements helps shape an expressive controller.
Read articleNOTE 03 / MATERIAL & CULTURE
Borrow the principle. Preserve the context.
How to discuss hybrid instruments without erasing the history of their acoustic predecessors.
Read articleNOTE 04 / DSP
Latency is a material, too.
Why a single number in milliseconds does not tell the whole story of an electronic instrument.
Read articleNOTE 05 / RECORDING
Record the object, not just its note.
A contact sensor, a conventional microphone, and the silence between takes as parts of a single portrait.
Read articleNOTE 06 / SIGNAL & MATERIAL
Two loops, one instrument
Why digital decay and physically sustaining a string require different architectures.
Read articleNOTE 07 / MICROTONALITY
A scale is not yet a keyboard
Three things to coordinate before sending an unconventional tuning to a synthesizer.
Read articleNOTE 08 / WORKSHOP
What goes into an instrument record
Small-batch production begins when a setup can be explained to someone else.
Read articleFROM AN EARLIER NOTEBOOK