SonicExplorer: fluid exploration of audio parameters.

In digital music production, the phrase "in the box" refers to the increasing replacement of extraneous hardware devices with compatible software components. As controls move from hard to soft, we have seen an increase in usability issues for musicians and sound engineers dealing with a large number of temporal inputs and both continuous and discrete controls. We present the SonicExplorer application, which we developed to give users a new interface for exploring and manipulating audio. SonicExplorer leverages users' spatial and color perception to enhance exploration by visualizing the parameter space and providing implicit memory cues. The application also leverages bimanual input to aid in fluid exploration of multidimensional audio parameter spaces, and to minimize the need for switching between parameters.