Usually I get off to a late start, but this year we are already beginning to brainstorm for Audio Anecdotes at Maker Faire 2011 (May 21-22nd, San Mateo Fairgrounds).
The idea this year is to allow participants to experiment with the various sound synthesis algorithms described in the books: FM, modal, subtractive, granular, physical, etc. Participants will get the realtime joy of exploring the strange and wonderful synth parameter sound spaces, and watch the related waveform and spectral waterfall ala Baudline.
Ideally we would build a knob box specific to each synthesizer along with a fun controller: contact microphone, voice microphone, velocity sensitive keyboard, wind controller, etc.
We intend to use some flavor of micro-controller to provide USB, ethernet, or MIDI interface to some number of optical quadrature encoder pots and interface these to computers running the synth (or perhaps run the algorithms completely on-board). In Maker spirit we will find a way to share the hardware design.
Please let me know if you have suggestions, would like to participate in the booth, or develop the knob boxes and related software.
