Bio
Darach is a musician, composer and programmer from Galway, with an interest in new
sound interface design. He graduated with a BEng in Electronic Engineering from the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2010. A keen interest in music combined with a background in electronics brought him to the Music and Media Technologies masters course in Trinity College Dublin, with a view towards combining these interests and gaining more knowledge and experience in the field of music technology. Darach plays the guitar and violin as well as singing, and has a particular interest in gestural control of music using wireless technologies, and their application in interactive interfaces.

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Abstract
The project undertaken by Darach for his masters thesis is an exploration of the gestural control of a timbre space using wireless technology. Many types of gestural control have been used in the past, mostly incorporating data gloves or other external controllers. This project uses the motion tracking capability of two Microsoft Kinect cameras to create a virtual timbre space. The Kinect motion tracking capability is such that the user can use their hands, with no need for external controllers. The user controls audio parameters within this space using hand position and gestures. The type of sound synthesis employed is Granular Synthesis, with the various hand controls allowing the user to interact with and manipulate the synthesis parameters within the space. This implementation will be presented as an interactive installation.