Techniques for closely-coupled sensing and actuation in digital musical instruments
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Davison, Matt
Schmidt, Adam
McPherson, Andrew
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Musical instruments involve numerous bidirectional couplings, between the musician and instrument in the tactile domain and between elements of the instrument's mechanical system. Closely-coupled sensing and actuating – where the two are simultaneous, collocated, in the same modality, and frequency range – can enable the design of hybrid instruments that fluidly exist across physical and digital domains. This, however, can introduce issues of crosstalk between actuation and sensing as well as unstable feedback if the implementation is not carefully considered. This paper summarises techniques for achieving closely-coupled sensing and actuation in digital musical instrument design. Options for reducing and mitigating interference between sensing and actuating are discussed, with their potential affordances of particular applications within hybrid instruments explored.
Date Issued
2026-06-01
Date Acceptance
2026-04-17
Citation
Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, 2026, pp.425-433
ISSN
2220-4806
Publisher
NIME
Start Page
425
End Page
433
Journal / Book Title
Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression
Copyright Statement
© 2026 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Source
New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2026)
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2026-06-23
Finish Date
2026-06-26
Coverage Spatial
London, UK