narrative
product
experience
Sonic Plunge
Sonic Plunge is an automated multi-sensory installation that blends trance-inducing sound, video, scent, and haptics into a deep-dive meditation, part dreamscape, part sensory joyride. Developed as a venture project within Carnegie Mellon's Music Entrepreneurship division, it reimagines the live sound bath as a repeatable, scalable experience, where wavefield synthesis audio, automated singing bowls, real-time visuals, and tactile vibration unfold along a single narrative arc.
Sonic Plunge is an automated multi-sensory installation developed at Carnegie Mellon's Music Entrepreneurship division. The project translates the live sound bath into a fully orchestrated environment of spatial audio, automated singing bowls, real-time visuals, lighting, and tactile vibration.
Problem
A compelling live sound bath depends on the right space, timing, and facilitator—conditions that are rarely available on demand.
Target User
People seeking meditation and healing through immersive sound, individuals in therapy or psychological care settings, and travelers in transit spaces like airports or lounges who need a brief moment to decompress.
User Experience
The user sits in a tactile chair and enters a fully immersive sound bath. Prerecorded spatial audio, live strikes from automated singing bowls (Musical Mushrooms), synchronized seat vibrations, and shifting scent blend into a single sensory field, where the source of each sensation becomes hard to trace. Each chapter carries its own rhythm: the water chapter pulses with a heartbeat-like resonance, the scent shifts with the mood, and the vibration itself softens the body into release.
Takeaway
User testing surfaced clear directions for the next iteration. Sensitivity to vibration varied between participants, pointing toward a personalized control module that lets each user adjust intensity. Chapters could also be selected by available time and intent, ranging from calming and sleep to relaxation and awakening. Some users suggested adding a fan for airflow, deepening the sensory layering. Long term, the system is designed to become portable, ready to plug into public spaces such as train stations and airports, with a companion app to extend the experience beyond the chair.
Acoustic
Multiple frosted singing bowls, soft mallets, occasional gong / room mics for reference recordings — our “strings & choir.”
Electronics
Microcontroller-based control, breadboard circuits, servos or small motors for strike experiments, batteries and regulated power where needed.
Light
LED accents inside or under bowls to reinforce slow visual rhythm alongside sound.
Sensory
Tactile transducers, seating vibration, or other physical channels so the low end is not only in your ears — tuned so it supports the bath rather than rattling the room.
Spatial Sound
A linear array of 64 speakers behind the screen renders true spatial audio through wavefield synthesis. Sound moves through the room with real placement, like a bird flying from left to right overhead.
Software
A linear array of 64 speakers behind the screen renders true spatial audio through wavefield synthesis. Sound moves through the room with real placement, like a bird flying from left to right overhead.
CMU Music Technology 2026