About the project

The Fortran Sampler is a device that allows you to compose musical arrangements through a novel and unique interface – an exploration of a retro-futuristic computer evolution, a tool and a toy.

The Fortan Sampler explores tangible interaction and musical composition. Inspired by old computer technologies and the Jacquard Loom machine, this project gives people the ability to compose diverse and beautiful musical arrangements without knowing anything about music theory.

 
The interaction is quite simple: take 1 of the 5 different cards and insert it in any of the 12 slots. The slots are broken into a 3x4 grid. Each column represents a block of 5 seconds in time, and each row is mapped to a type of instrument from the 3 building blocks of music; rhythm, harmony, and melody.

 
 
 
 

How does it work?

 

The brain of the Fortran Sampler is a Teensy 3.6 (an Arduino-compatible microcontroller). The custom-made surface where the cards attach to have 3 channels or bits each (hence the name), all connected through multiplexers to the microcontroller.

 
Fabricating this surface was a big challenge because it needed a precise fit in order to correctly read the cards. This was solved by layering 3 different pieces of acrylic, all laser-cut with a specific patterns, guiding the magnets inside the board and the card to a straight alignment.

 
An internal metronome inside the Teensy reads each column at 100 beats per minute and signals a computer running a web-app to play the respective sounds mapped to each type of card.