Leap motion is an affordable and easy to use tool to track the motions of the user’s hands. It is widely used to control musical software. Mostly it’s being used for live performances e.g. to perform filtersweeps or to alter the volume of a certain audio-track or instrument just with the movement of the hand(s). While you find an increasing number of applications for music performances there are only few examples of how a motion tracking device like Leap motion can support music composers in the process of creating new sounds. This poster presentation (accompanied by an early-stage prototype developed in Chuck1 ) shows ways how Leap motion can be mapped to 10 or more parameters of a synthesizer at the same time for users searching for inspiration. This project especially focusses on supporting divergent thinking processes which are used to generate new ideas by trying out many possible solutions and exploring a wide field of options. One of the simplest solutions to support divergent thinking processes in sound exploration is the ‘random button’ which sets all parameters of a synthesizer to random values. This can be a simple and yet effective solution but leaves a lot to chance. Instead of letting a button randomly decide on a configuration of all your synthesizer parameters: What if every possible sound of your synthesizer would be located somewhere on an imaginary 1x1x1 meter cube right in front of you on your desk? What if you could explore the entire soundscape by moving your hand through this cube?

Ateliers du Forum 2017, jour 2