Design Explorations of Instruments and Interactions with Bidirectional Haptic Couplings

Direct interaction with digital synthesisers using audio signals can offer opportunities for intimate and nuanced interaction in digital musical instrument designs. Unlike acoustic instruments, these hybrid instruments tend to follow a unidirectional interaction structure: tactile gestures generate audio signals that are fed into a synthesiser, but there is no vibrotactile feedback from the instrument back to the musician. This paper presents the HaptiCoupler system that enables bidirectional tactile interaction with digital musical instruments using a single voice coil transducer. A study is undertaken with experienced digital musical instrument designers to explore the design implications of introducing closely coupled, collocated haptic feedback in musical systems. The potential creative implications for designers are discussed.