Our first instrument: PAM

another early PAM video

more videos

In creating PAM, we had several goals in mind:

• To create a string instrument capable of producing a wide range of pitches and timbres with as few temporal limitations as possible
  
• To create a modular, customizable platform to suit the needs of various compositional ideas
  
• To decouple the string from the instrument’s body, so that signals from pickups on the instrument can be routed to swappable resonators actuated by contact speakers rather than direct acoustic coupling

This led us to create an instrument characterizable as:

Poly-tangent
Pitch is controlled by tangents (fingers), each driven by a single solenoid.

Automatic
Messages are sent from a computer via USB to an Arduino microcontroller,
used to switch solenoids on and off.

PAM can receive data from many sources:

• Musical/gestural input devices (e.g. MIDI keyboard/joystick, mouse, etc.)
  
• Environmental sensors (e.g. photoresistors)
  
• Composed or algorithmically generated sequences

(multi-)Monochord
PAM is essentially a monophonic instrument, we use multiple strings tuned to the same pitch to create a richer timbre.