Download The Wablet: Scanned Synthesis on a Multi-Touch Interface
This paper presents research into scanned synthesis on a multitouch screen device. This synthesis technique involves scanning a wavetable that is dynamically evolving in the manner of a massspring network. It is argued that scanned synthesis can provide a good solution to some of the issues in digital musical instrument design, and is particularly well suited to multi-touch screens. In this implementation, vibrating mass-spring networks with a variety of configurations can be created. These can be manipulated by touching, dragging and altering the orientation of the tablet. Arbitrary scanning paths can be drawn onto the structure. Several extensions to the original scanned synthesis technique are proposed, most important of which for multi-touch implementations is the freedom of the masses to move in two dimensions. An analysis of the scanned output in the case of a 1D ideal string model is given, and scanned synthesis is also discussed as being a generalisation of a number of other synthesis methods.