Audio Physical Computing

The paper describes an approach to the control of electromechanical devices for musical purposes (mainly, DC motors and solenoids) using audio signals. The proposed approach can be named audio physical computing, i.e. physical computing oriented towards sound generation by means of audio signals. The approach has its origin in a previous physical computing project dedicated to music generation, the Rumentarium Project, that used microcontrollers as the main computing hardware interface. First, some general aspect of physical computing are discussed and the Rumentarium project is introduced. Then, a reconsideration of the technical setup of the Rumentarium is developed, and the audio physical computing approach is considered as a possible replacement for microcontrollers. Finally, a music work is described, in order to provide a real life example of audio physical computing.