Stacco is a novel digital instrument with embedded magnetometers. The interface attracts and repels magnetic spheres and it detects their position based on the variations in the magnetic fields they produce. This sensing mechanism allows both fine musical control and the emergence of unpredictable interactions out of interlaced magnetic forces. The instrument has been designed to perform with and notate for neural synthesis models, where multidimensional sonic spaces can be navigated through the exploration of tangled control parameters.
Developed in Collaboration with Nicola Privato at the Intelligent Instruments Lab as part of the EU ERC INTENT project.
Stacco comes with graphical scores that function as guides for the exploration of the sonic output of the neural synth. By drawing on the surface of the interface, it is also possible to create new scores and layer them on top of each other.
More about this project in the publication Sketching Magnetic Interactions for Neural Synthesis presented at International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR 2024) hosted at the Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology - Zurich University of the Arts.