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© Copyright 2006, Jason Wendel. All Rights Reserved.
Jason Wendel    

ELECTRONICS
    Meet VERN (Vocally and Electro-acoustically Refined Noises). VERN is an electronic music controller that I created to interface with a computer using Max/MSP. VERN takes input from one of its eight bend sensors to control live or pre-recorded sound processing. The bend sensors are composed of tiny patches of carbon that change resistance when bent. Each sensor has a maximum resistance of 30k to 40k ohms, proportional to how far it's bent. Their nominal resistance is 10k ohms.
    VERN also has various digital inputs (keypad) and an LED-based motion sensor built into its base. The digital inputs can be used to trigger various sound events (start/stop pre-recorded sound samples), and the motion sensor is primarily used to track the position of VERN on a flat surface. This position information is typically used to control sound diffusion (if surround speakers are utilized), but could also be reprogrammed to control other sound modification parameters.

    The core of VERN is comprised of two Teleo brand I/O modules. The main board is a multi function module with 4 analog inputs, 2 digital inputs, 2 digital outputs and 2 PWM outputs. The secondary board is a basic multi-function module with a selection of inputs and outputs including 4 digital inputs, 4 digital outputs, 4 analog inputs, and 2 PWM outputs. The analog inputs (4 on each board) are utilized by the bend sensors.

    VERN uses a basic keypad for digital input. I found this option gave me much more flexibility than using the Teleo inputs (of which, I only had 6 that could be used for digital). Utilizing the keypad also helped keep cost down. While this is only a proto-type, I still tried to keep expense at a minimum. However, it is highly unlikely that this sort of device would ever be practical for mass production, as the audio processing is offloaded to the computer that it's connected to.

    Typically, I use VERN to process live vocal sounds. Here are a few samples: