The PushPull Is An Open Source Squeezebox For Electroacoustic Music

push-pull-midi-controller

The developers of the PushPull – a sort of squeezebox for electroacoustic music – have collected all their materials documenting the creation of the instrument and made it available to the public for free on Github.

The PushPull, created by Dominik Hildebrand Marques Lopes, Amelie Hinrichsen and Till Bovermann, was one of the winners at 2015 Guthman Music Instrument Competition, an international event to promote new musical instrument design.

Moving the hand piece controls the air stream within the bellow and guides air to blow over microphones. The inertial sensors in the hand piece, together with capacitive fingertip sensors, let you continuously shape the sound.

Here’s a demo of the PushPull in action:

Features:

  • a custom-made bellow,
  • a pair of microphones to capture the bellow’s “breathing”,
  • a 6DOF inertial sensor, and
  • several encoders, buttons and capacitive sensors.

PushPull is the first instrument developed as part of the 3DMIN project, an interdisciplinary team for the Design, Development and Dissemination of New Musical Instruments.

7 thoughts on “The PushPull Is An Open Source Squeezebox For Electroacoustic Music

  1. “Sort of” is right. Not what I expected at all. If it was to be some kind of realtime sound controller, i.e. with an input for another instrument (keyboard or whatever), then this could be an interesting sort of “breath controller” type thing. A pressure sensor could be used to control amplitude and timbre of the input signal, the wheezy breath thing could be added in to the source which would add a nice element.

    1. Funny that you mention a breath controller as a reference point. TEControl’s BBC has a gyroscope built in. Big plus: you can use both of your hands freely while modulating the sound with your mouth and head. Might look a little less elegant, but costs only a tenth.

      1. Sorry, I mixed up threads. I was talking about the price of the mi.mu gloves 🙂
        Still, TEControl is a good alternative to a lot of things out there.

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