A sonification toolset: StarSound and VoxMagellan

Description

StarSound and VoxMagellan are two data sonification tools designed to assist sighted and non-sighted researchers for using real-time sound synthesis techniques for interrogating their data. The tools only require a laptop with functioning mouse trackpad. Alternatively, the inclusion of haptic devices, including passive or active midi mixing boards and, large touch-based canvases, such as the Wacom tablets, enhances accessibility by allowing users to control and modify software features and parameters in real-time. Both software tools use a mix of frequency modulation, additive synthesis and midi instrumentation for the creation of sounds, and a tuneable data-to-sound mapping system – allowing real-time parameter changes during audition. A database and template system offer a variety of mapping strategies, such as simple shape tracing, harmonic and inharmonic models, complex models, and musical instruments. This helps to demonstrate the potential for applying different data to sound mappings for a variety of tasks, but also for assisting new users and to reduce uncertainty.

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