The Wablet – A Physics-Based Synthesizer & Noise Toy

Developer Robert Tubb has introduced The Wablet, a “physics based synthesiser and noise toy”.

Here’s how Tubb describes it:

An animated mesh of springs can be vibrated with the fingers. A path around this mesh is read as into an audio waveform, and hence your gestures are turned into sound. Complex evolving drones, chiptunes bleeps or full on noise can be produced, and beautiful undulating patterns created.

The physical properties of the mesh can be changed using the sliders, new sound-paths can be drawn onto the Mesh and the App comes with a Max/MSP patch for wireless MIDI control and more in depth adjustable parameters.

The Wablet scans the current state of the interactive mass-spring network and uses that waveshape as an oscillator cycle for synthesizing sound.

Here’s a video introduction from Tubb:

Finally, here is a sound demonstration of the Wablet being triggered via MIDI over a wireless network:

Wablet is available for $.99 in the App Store. If you’ve used Wablet, let us know what you think of it!

15 thoughts on “The Wablet – A Physics-Based Synthesizer & Noise Toy

  1. Fun toy. It’s very easy to get nice evolving drones playing with the sine and the springiness. Not a bad way to spend some cents.

    1. Android isn’t optimized for audio and a lot of the Android tablets basically use older CPUs.

      Because of this, Android is too slow for musical purposes. There’s a big delay (half a second on some tablets) between when you touch the screen and when the sound comes out.

      Some of the newer tablets are supposed to be better but it’s a nightmare for developers.

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