Volotic

Description

Volotic is an experimental nonlinear sequencer. What does that mean? It means a fun way to create songs for everyone, with no musical experience required. To compose a song, populate the grid from a library of towers to create, modify and route beats into melodic and percussive instruments.

Concept

Inspired in part by tower defense games, I imagined a musical instrument that was played by launching projectiles. I created an early prototype of Volotic called “BoxBeat” in 2012. I had just completed Singing Star and wanted to continue working with Cocos2D, but had some major synchronization problems in my initial approach. I shelved the project while at grad school, but decided to pick it up again and rewrite it from scratch.

I do not consider myself a toolmaker and usefulness is not necessarily a priority for me, though it is certainly something I consider. Instead, I view Volotic as an artwork in and of itself—a personal creative expression.

The name “Volotic” is a portmanteau of “volley” and “hypnotic” with allusions to “melodic”.

Getting Started

Volotic is designed for exploration and experimentation, so there are no tutorials or instructions. Your best bet is to simply start with a demo song and play with it until you get the hang of things.

Hints and tips related to frequently asked questions will be added to the wiki.

Interface

More images of Volotic are available in this Flickr album.

Development

Volotic was created using Unity, a game development platform. Graphical assets were authored primarily with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Sounds were generated and edited using Apple Logic Pro X, with some processing done with scripts based on sox.