Dusk – Quad Panner

Whilst not true ‘surround sound’, the audio for Dusk will be presented through 4 speakers, placed around the installation. One of the goals of Dusk is to create a level of immersion for the viewer, to try and surround them with sound and vision. To build upon this alternate reality, I built a simple Max/MSP patch in Ableton Live which will pan audio between 4 different Return tracks. Each of these tracks output audio to a distinct channel (speaker), creating a controllable quadraphonic space.

I built this patch (now available for download on maxforlive.com) now using some of the elements from JuanSOLO’s ‘SEND Control’ device, but instead of taking information from a MIDI controller or similar, my patch receives OSC messages, passing x and y coordinates and mirroring this movement with panned sound. Sound design is going to be handled by Eli, while the panning coordinates will come from Lukasz‘ flocking fireflies, created in openFrameworks.