Tri-sensor button hooked up to sound

I covered the button, to make it the shiny red, candy-like button I always wanted which actually diminished the responsiveness a bit.

Adding more fluff in the top of the button to round it out

Red cover with binding around the bottom before cutting off excess

When I tried the button, I later found out that the extra fluff I put in the top made the button bounce back to the original shape nicely, but hindered the responsiveness. Sadly, I had to take it out in order to get the switch to close, it still takes some force and then does not bounce back. If the cover was a bit tighter, or I had added height below where I fixed the digital switch, the top would not appear concave after pressing it. A note for future generations.

In the videos you can also see the opening I left once I needed to get back in to remove the fluff that I had added to the top. Something I will fix later.

Regardless of it’s minor faults, I hooked it up to some out put. First I hooked it up to my Arduino and used the pitches.h library to create tones. I wasn’t able to get the two digital switches and the one analog to play together in the same program, so I included two different videos. The first is of the two separate digital switches playing two different notes.

Breadboard set up for the arduino with a piezo using the pitches.h library

Red button with arduino pitches.h from lara grant on Vimeo.

This next one is the analog hooked up to play through several frequencies. It is hard to tell that there is any great range. Using this application did not seem the best way to get a nice sound, and I wasn’t too successful programming it correctly, so I didn’t play around with it too long. After this I decided to move my values over to Max/MSP.

Red button analog with arduino pitches.h from lara grant on Vimeo.

I hooked up the red button to Max/MSP using existing patches I had. One digital is playing a note in a sequence every time it closes. The second one starts a new window with a constant bass noise, while playing a sound each time I close it. The analog is hooked to this same patch and changes the frequency of the bass. I believe I can get a better response with a clearer range just by changing the values of my range in my patch… but, this is a good start.
I’m able to go back and forth by hooking my bang up to start a new window each time I press each individual digital. Once the new window is started in one patch, the other one’s volume is shut off, allowing me to toggle between the two.

Red button with Max/MSP from lara grant on Vimeo.