Symbaline: An electromagnetically actuated wine glass instrument

The Symbaline is a wine glass instrument, producing sounds by exciting a set of wine glasses using electromagnets. The electromagnets are driven by audio signals generated using any musical instrument, allowing musicians to play the Symbaline using their own instruments without additional training. Symbaline sound customisation is achieved by applying various audio effects on the input signal, as well as assembling different sets of ready-made wine glasses. This paper describes the Symbaline’s operation and sound characterisation, and explores different usage modes. These include playing by a classical guitar and playing by custom-designed virtual instruments, controlled with a MIDI keyboard.