Project:The Augmented Bass

Augment me!

Description

The idea is to augment a bass guitar to

1. extend the range of sounds it can make
2. control realtime effects with it.

Goal 1: Drum triggering

Triggering drum sounds while playing. For example, having low-pitched notes trigger kick-drum sounds and high pitched ones trigger snare-drum sounds.

Goal 2: Control via inclination

Making the neck's inclination control an effect. For example, tilting it up increases a reverb's room size.

Hardware

• A cheap Cort bass, doesn't sound too good but looks pretty.
• Contact microphones.
• Accelerometers.

Interested parties (add yourself)

• Ariel
• Arthur Dent

• You!

Prior art

• Some notable Augmented instruments projects.
• Augmented Tubas, Guitars, Kalimbas.
• Bootsy.

Milestones

November 3rd

• Bass and contact microphones brought to Hackspace.
• Brainstorming.

November 10th

• Affixed contact microphones to bucket bass (thanks Billy!)
• Affixed contact microphones to electric bass
• Experimented with different microphone locations
• Experimented with different modulations (wah-wah, band pass with very high Q, different reverbs)