Rodney Duplessis, MS MAT (2021) and current PhD student in Music.
Coupled Harmonic Oscillator Network (CHON) is a novel application for generating tactile sonic gestures and textures using a simulation of a physical dynamical system as a musical interface. The physical system is a network of particles connected by a spring-like force. The user sets the system into motion by displacing a particle, which causes a chain reaction governed by Newtonian mechanics. The system generates complex yet tangible control data that can be used to drive sound synthesis parameters.
The visual interface is a 3D rendering of the particle system. The user interacts directly with the particles in the visual simulation using a computer mouse. A 2D graph can also be displayed which visualizes the displacement of each particle along a given axis. The instrument generates a stream of OSC data from each particle, making it a versatile tool for generating up to hundreds of control signals that are linked by physical laws.
The application is written in C++ and uses the Allolib framework extensively.
