“OTTO: Musical Instrument for Realtime Manual Beat Slicing” presented by Rosso

OTTO is an electronic musical instrument for realtime manual beat slicing. The beat slicing is a well developed technique used mostly in electronic music, by means of what short rhythmical audio samples, of a few seconds in length, are cut into pieces to separate the main drum hits. These slices are then re-arranged in time, stretched, reversed, pitched up or down and so on, in order to create a completely new rhythmical section which could ideally last forever with continuous changes. The purpose of this project was to design specific controls for a technique that doesn’t have a specific hardware yet. The device provides a tangible user interface designed with the aim of giving the user the feeling of having the sample in his hands. The performer can manipulate an audio sample in real time through the use of a restricted number of physical controls and clear visual feedbacks.