Madrona Soundplane A

Our first hardware product is the Madrona Soundplane A, a force-sensitive surface for intimate control of electronic music. What is intimate control? Instruments like the violin and hand drums give the player a very responsive connection to sound through their physical construction. In a state of creative flow, we stop thinking about these instruments as separate devices and speak directly through them. In a very real sense they become part of us.

On a typical MIDI keyboard, most of the information from each finger gesture is thrown away, and the rest is boiled down into a single 7-bit velocity value. The Soundplane A transmits x, y and pressure data at about 1000 samples per second, letting the synthesist move beyond the ADSR model for control and articulate each note individually, as on an acoustic instrument. An array of very responsive capacitive sensors detects a range of forces from an extremely light touch to a hard slap. A DSP calibrates the sensors dynamically and sends the data via USB.

The playing surface is a material custom developed for us, a flexible sheet of hardwood veneer bonded to a plastic backing for strength. The case is milled out of alder, a sustainably harvested Northwest hardwood. We have sourced all of the construction locally and will test and assemble by hand here. The entire instrument is about 28 inches wide by 8 inches deep by 1 inch thick. We think it will look great next to a monome.

We are currently finishing hardware design and moving on to the embedded software. After that comes testing. Lots of testing. When it's ready, we will announce a ship date. In the meantime, we will post updates here.

The Soundplane's continuous capacitive sensing technology is patent pending. It is also described in Randy Jones' NIME paper from 2009 [pdf] so that you can make your own. We encourage and support related DIY experiments via our forum.

Soundplane A FAQ

When?
When it's done.

Why?
"Musical ideas are prisoners, more than one might believe, of musical devices."
- Pierre Schaeffer

Will it have MIDI / OSC outputs?
The Soundplane A sends its data via USB. Initially, you will need a computer to run our translator program that generates MIDI and OSC data from the raw USB stream. You can send these messages out a MIDI interface or, in the case of OSC, Ethernet and other kinds of connections as well. We definitely understand the appeal of connecting the Soundplane directly to MIDI and CV/Gate devices, so a product that would allow that is definitely something we are thinking about. But, first things first.

We also have plans to create multiple software synthesizers that will read the Soundplane data directly over USB. So, for these synths no translator app will be needed---just fire up the synth and play.

Can I use my favorite OS?
We are writing our software with the help of JUCE, a cross-platform framework that supports Mac OS, Windows and Linux. We plan to release our translator software for all of these platforms. We may decide to release some things on Mac OS first, simply because we do our development on Mac.

So... how much?
A fair question but hard to answer now. The Soundplane A contains a fast DSP and some special materials, is lovingly handcrafted, and represents lots of development effort. On the other hand, we want you to be able to afford one. Please stay tuned.

How many simultaneous touches are possible?
The biggest limit to polyphony will be in terms of how close together independent touches can be recognized, rather than how many touches can be. We can support 8 touches or more, but this won't be useful if they all have to be spread a few inches apart from one another. The resolution we can get won't be known until we are finished, but we are aiming for piano-like resolution that will allow all 10 fingers to be used.

How big is it?
About 1" by 18" by 28" (3 by 46 by 71 cm).

How much does it weigh?
About 6 pounds (3kg).

All specs subject to change, of course.