Synchronized mobile devices using web audio technology on a Raspberry Pi

Abstract

This paper describes the ongoing development of a system for the creation of a distributed musical space: the Mu- sicBox. The MusicBox has been realized as an open access point for mobile devices. It provides a musical web application enabling the musician to distribute audio events onto the connected mobile devices and control synchronous playback of these events. In order to locate the mobile devices, a microphone array has been developed, allowing to automatically identify sound direction of the connected mobile devices. This makes it possible to control the position of audio events in the musical space. The system has been implemented on a Raspberry Pi, making it very cheap and robust. No network access is needed to run the MusicBox, turning it into a versatile tool to setup interactive distributed music installations.