An Acoustic Wind Machine and its Digital Counterpart:Initial Audio Analysis and Comparison

As part of an investigation into the potential of historical theatre sound effects as a resource for Sonic Interaction Design (SID), an acoustic theatre wind machine was constructed and analysed as an interactive sounding object. Using the Sound Designer’s Toolkit (SDT), a digital, physical modelling- based version of the wind machine was programmed, and the acoustic device fitted with a sensor system to control the digital model. This paper presents an initial comparison between the sound output of the acoustic theatre wind machine and its digital counterpart. Three simple and distinct rotational gestures are chosen to explore the main acoustic parameters of the output of the wind machine in operation: a single rotation; a short series of five rotations to create a sustained sound; and a longer series of ten rotations that start at speed and diminish in energy. These gestures are performed, and the resulting acoustic and digital sounds recorded simultaneously, facilitating an analysis of the temporal and spectral domain in Matlab of the same real-time performance of both sources. The results are reported, and a discussion of how they inform further calibration of the real-time synthesis system is presented.