Noiseey – Multifunctional Musical Device

Noisey is a multi-functional musical instrument concept by Tom Clarke and Arterfact.

Tom worked as a teacher and saw first hand that a student would choose an instrument, costing the school or parent/guardian a lot of money, for the student to then not be interested in said instrument. Tom is combining multiple instruments into a single digital device. Noiseey is the character which morphs into the different instruments depending on the configuration of the adaptable physical device.

Students can now play drums, violin, guitar, flute, all in one device, with scope to add more instruments through creative midi controllers and expandable digital applications.

Scenegraph Studios’ challenge within the project was to create the digital experience, the animations and creation of digital assets.

Scenegraph Studios also needed to help with the 3D CAD design of the assets and to print said device using a 3D printer. Often this type of CAD design would cost a considerable amount, but games technology and open source software allowed Scenegraph Studios to develop this type of assets in-house, at considerably lower cost.

Given the nature of the interactive application, it was fitting to use some of the latest in 3D realtime rendering techniques and audio processing. The Unreal Game Engine was a perfect fit for this project as it allowed rapid prototyping, high end visualisations, animations, and great audio processing.

Application Development

Using Unreal Engine 4, the latest in 3D gaming tech, we are able to develop a multi-touch experience for drums, piano, violin, guitar, and keyboard.

After reviewing multiple touch devices, we recommended developing using an Android smart phone for a multiple of reasons; Unreal Engine deploys to Android devices easily, touch is already enabled, alternative device options are very expensive, and for future developments the application can be put onto a newer Android device with minimal code changes.

CAD design and 3D printing of physical device

For the 3D CAD design of the physical device, Scenegraph Studios used Blender, an open source 3D modelling program.