Flood the Box is a MIDI sequencer and modulation source, designed for sequencing drum and percussion parts. Unlike a regular sequencer that uses purely electronic signals; Flood the Box uses a series of sequenced valves that drop water onto capacitive touch-plates to trigger sounds. Each plate senses the initial trigger, position of the trigger (as XY values) on the plate as well as the trigger velocity and pressure - giving each drum 4 degrees of expression.
There's a few answers to this question:
Firstly it's been the focal point of my undergraduate degree. For my final project I am developing a digitally-controlled drum machine that uses water to trigger acoustic sounds. The use of water as a triggering mechanism allows the sound production process to be fully-observable - something that is not possible without layers of abstraction with regular electronic sequencers.
Second, the rhythmic properties of falling water.
For my final project, I am planning on creating a modular marble maze wherein each track element represents a musical event, and by constructing a track for the marble you also create a musical 'track'. The ball travels down the track and triggers musical events as it passes over the track -Song tempo is dictated by the velocity of the ball -The 7 notes of the C Major scale can be represented as ROYGBIV - CDEFGAB -This will make it easy to identify what notea track element is -Note lengths can be given as: -1 Bar = 320 mm -1/2 Note = 160mm -1/4 Note = 80mm -1/8 Note = 40mm -1/16 Note = 20mm -1/32 Note = 10mm
The colour of each piece will represent the note being played (ROYGBIV = CDEFGAB)
Track pieces can rhythmically represent 1 bar (320mm) to 1/32 (10mm)
The tempo of the piece is dicated by the velocity of the marble
A lift carries balls from the bottom of the track back to top - creating a loop
The marble essentially acts as a playhead, and reads the events in the order that it passes along the track.