Comments on: AudioCubes by Percussa

By: bert

bert — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:52:35 +0000

about the cost of the AudioCubes: each cube contains a computer (DSP) system powered by a rechargeable battery, full colour RGB LEDs and 4 sensors in and out. So, a set of cubes is a collection of small computers. If a set of 4 cubes is about 649 EUR, that means each cube is about 160 EUR. IMHO not much more expensive than other interfaces.

By: bert

bert — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:45:00 +0000

the concepts of tangible interfaces have been around for many years, since the 70ies if I remember from some academic publications. I believe the first such concepts were built into an installation designed by an architect. AudioCubes and Murat’s Loopqoobs are quite different ideas and systems both in concept and workings.

By: kb

kb — Sat, 24 May 2008 08:55:47 +0000

Very interesting. But check out Murat Konar's work from 5 years ago. It is strikingly similar.
http://www.muratnkonar.com/id/loopqoob/index.shtml

By: renegade ninja

renegade ninja — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:22:36 +0000

thats ba

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:38:57 +0000

Thanks for suggesting the DIY route — that was my first reaction when I saw these. Of course, to the creator Bart, they are a DIY project (hmm… one man’s DIY is another’s product? or something…). But I’d love to see what other directions people go along similar lines — not to clone this, but to do something different and, perhaps, better.

By: fartface

fartface — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:43:57 +0000

A far better way to desing those that would be more reactive and not have the annoying no trigger that even an experienced person get's is to set up a centeral cube with 4 cheap webcams and then have specific id's on the other cubes the webcams read.

otherwise central cube has 4 IR recievers int o4 zones. each cube has 4 Ir emitters running at 100,200,400,800hz and simply look for those tones. now change the tones for the other cubes to identify them (I.E. cube 3 has 1200,1400,1600,1800 on it... etc...)

you could build them cheaply. the center cube will be more expensive with a USB capable pic, then write the interface software.

Easy to do, and lexan is cheap.

By: Joakim

Joakim — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:32:36 +0000

Me and a friend made something similar but more selfcontained. It's a sequencer with 6 tracks (each side of a cube) that loops, does quantization and talks MIDI to whatever software sampler/synthesizer you got. It's built with 2 Sun SPOTs which makes it wireless.

Check it out:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=A2ovCl99Dpw

By: michael

michael — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:54:59 +0000

Next step is to build these yourself. Just because these things are crazy expensive!!

By: Jaku

Jaku — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:54:25 +0000

These cubes kinda remind me of the cube at http://h3x3n.net/ they showed it off at http://deadtech.com/ a week or two ago. It has IR leds in it, and it communicates with Wiimotes, that pass the info onto max/msp. They are releasing the source code for everything shortly.

By: Zinetwin

Zinetwin — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:24:08 +0000

Pretty spiffy, but not a cool as the reactable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc
http://reactable.iua.upf.edu/

Reactable is a multitouch surface with as many cubes as you can stick on it.