Description:

The Noiseboxes are a group of standalone embedded musical instruments. They are the products of an ongoing research/creation project that examines how novel musical instruments can be designed to foster long-term engagement and sustained use in music performance. Three generations of Noiseboxes have been created so far. The first generation was a proof of concept that came out of practice based research in the design of embedded DMIs. A second generation followed, with several instruments produced using the Prynth framework for self-contained DMIs for a user study. For the third and current generation, three distinct versions have been developed with key design specifications coming out of a set of co-design workshops held with expert musicians.

Future work for the instruments is planned, including a longitudinal study where the finished instruments will be given back to workshop participants to to follow how they are taken up into their own performance practices.

IDMIL Participants:

• John Sullivan
• Marcelo M. Wanderley
• Patrick Cowden

External Participants:

• Julian Vanasse

Research Areas:

• Embedded Systems
• Interface Design
• Interface Evaluation

Funding:

• Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT)

Publications:

• Sullivan, J., Vanasse, J., Guastavino, C., Wanderley, M. M. (2020). Reinventing the Noisebox: Designing Embedded Instruments for Active Musicians. In Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2020). Birmingham, UK.
• Sullivan, J. (2015). Noisebox: Design and Prototype of a New Digital Musical Instrument. In Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (pp. 266-269). Denton, TX, USA.

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