The Development Of Physical Spatial Controllers

This paper introduces recent developments in the Chronus series, a family of custom built controllers that afford a performer gestural interaction with surround sound systems, and that can be easily integrated into their personal performance systems. The controllers are built with the goal of encouraging more electronic musicians to include the creation of dynamic pantophonic sound fields in performance. The paper focuses on technical advances of the Chronus_2.0 prototype that extend the interface to control both radial and angular positional data. There is also discussion of the controller’s ease of integration into electronic performance configurations, both for diffusion and for performance from the wider electronic music community.