Drop! is an interactive sound game based around a marble run toy. When someone drops a marble (in this case a steel bearing) down the run, it triggers audio samples from the computer. The pieces which trigger the audio are wired into the system so that when the setup of the run is changed, so is the order and timing of the sound, thus making a reconfigurable piece of music and fun!

The music is a mix of 11 short audio extracts. These range from close microphone recordings of marbles doing things in the studio; such as rattling in a bowl, or going down the marble run. One percussive sound has been made by taking the sound of a marble and dropping it on a board, slowing it down four times and then modelling the reverberant acoustic of York Minster around it. Other sounds are more mainstream ranging from FM synthesis (the default setting for all good sci-fi film scores!) as well as a more dance-y sounding loop created in Reactor.

The audio was balanced an mixed in 4-channel surround sound to enhance the motion and movement of the tracks. The sounds of a bicycle bell and a duck have been thrown in for good measure.

Things happen in the work when the marble rolls over two pieces of aluminium tape and completes a circuit, effectively closing a switch.  With the aid of some home made electronics and an Arduino circuit board-chip housed in an old Chinese takeaway box these messages are sent via USB, luck and faery power, to the computer.

In the computer the interface which de-codes all these signals, brings up pictures of the active part of the marble run and plays back the audio has been written in Max MSP. Hopefully that makes sense for those that want it to, the full code is available here.

So there you are. An in depth and subtle composition that questions the nature of sequence in music with some technical rough science thrown in...

Maybe sometimes it's more important to have some fun!