PEAL is an interactive sound installation for The Leeds Arena which models the layout and operation of a traditional church bell tower, replacing the bell ropes by an optical sensing system where lasers act to trigger the ringing process of the individual bells. When a beam is interrupted by a player’s hand, the installation reproduces the ringing of the appropriate bell through a multi-speaker sound system, as if its corresponding rope had been pulled.

How did this project use Max?

PEAL's multichannel audio engine is implemented in Max, and we also use Max to host the Python scripts which determine its behaviour, talk to the Arduino system which controls the lasers, sensors and RGB LED clusters, and communicate with the Processing-based down-projected animation.