Sonicontrol

Abstract

As the types of sound effect units for electric guitars have been increasing, diverse methods to control them have been developed. While the most widespread interface is the pedal type controller, this study suggests SoniControl, a hand motion-based effect system. SoniControl is a low cost and easy to build control solution for live guitar players. With the portable media players and the earphones, guitarists can easily use this new control method without modifying physical structure of the electric guitar. The system utilizes Very Low Frequency (VLF) range of electromagnetic (EM) wave as a beacon signal, which is played from the earphone with the sonic wave, to calculate the position of the player’s hand relative to the body of the guitar. The beacon signal is received by the guitar pickup along with its instrumental sound. The sound processor, connected to the guitar like other conventional effect chain units, recognizes gesture information from the input signal and modulates the guitar sound according to the gesture. The command control method includes audio effect on/off and audio effect switch and the parameter control method includes expression handle, which alters the sound effect parameter. Users are able to command and control the system by gestures while they playing the guitar.