Andrew Claes

On December 21, I will be presenting the Hybrid Saxophone at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. The concert will draw on everything I have learned during the course of this Ph.D. trajectory and will feature the Goeyvaerts String Trio, enlarged with double bass player Pieter Leenaerts and my robot friend, dadamachines!! Keeping…

My Ph.D. is almost finished! Preparing the internal defense, scheduled on November 22nd. Being a Ph.D. in the Arts, the thesis is presented as a book rather than an academic paper. The book is documenting my progress from a jazz musician with a passion for patching synthesizers, drumcomputers and generative systems in environments like NI…

New prototype!! I finished another POC prototype. This time I upgraded a 1927 Lyon & Healy C-melody sax. The cables are smaller, the octave system works better and I chose to omit the breathsensor completely. This may seem an odd choice at first, even a step backwards, but I’m trying to make this thing as…

The Hybrid Sax is approaching completion!! Proud to present you world’s first Hybrid Sax Proof of Concept model. This version features an analog envelope follower circuit. The saxophone mouthpiece is equipped with the perfect sensor for picking up sound from the mouthpiece: Viga Music Tools Intramic. The Intramic is read out through the envelope follower…

Bring me the octaves! This version features a handy octave system. I used the capacitive touch inputs available on the ESP32. Touching the first metal sensor transposes the MIDI output one octave lower, Touching both sensor 1 and 2 simultaneously transposes 2 octaves down. Touching only the second sensor will transpose the data 3 octaves…

Proof of Concept getting ready! As promised, here is a video showing off the saxophone as a MIDI-controller. All keys are read out through hall effect sensors, interpreted by a ESP32 microcontroller. MIDI-notes are send through both Bluetooth and DIN-connection. In this instance, digital breath information is provided by the Photon breath controller. This is…

Upgrades all over! The hall effect switches were redesigned, the Teensy LC was upgraded to a Sparkfun ESP32 Thing and everything now has its place on a beautiful PCB. The sensors and magnets are attached to the body of the saxophone with sugru adhesive. A total of 32 digital sensors can be interpreted now. The…