[vimeo http://vimeo.com/7348848%5D
[Ico Doornekamp] sent us his ultrasonic-entirely code based-thermin project in response to yesterdays Virtual theremin. By using the programming environment Pure Data, he is able to transform his laptop into a dual input device (while only using a single microphone) without modification. By being so open-ended theoretically anyone can have a theremin within a few moments of downloading, but he does mention it might not work on all hardware.
Also in relation to yesterday’s use of a Wii remote [blobKat] let us know about his thesis project, performance based music making. After studying the connection between musicians and their use of laptops decided that they would want more interaction and movement in their music creation. He combined gesture recognition and synth based movement with Wii remotes to achieve his ends. The video above is an explanation and example of his efforts.
I’m near speechless… I’ve wanted something like this since I was a kid. Quite a novel control interface for music. I can just picture cuing some Bach and playing conductor for a day.
That is brilliant!!!!
I can see that this has a lot potential out there.
This is a great hack, and definitely thesis-worthy.
This is really impressive. I wouldn’t have thought this possible with standard laptop hardware. I hope I can get it for the mac some time :P
Congratulations Team Hackaday! http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4264/balloon.jpg
This is a great use of the Wii remote! I will surely be linking to this from my post about Johnny Lee and his Wii remote hacks –
http://1337hackz.com/blog/?p=53
It’s a great hack, but I seriously doubt how many artists would prefer the wiimote method to express themselfs, since the original issue was “not look so limited and stupid behind your laptop” is it going to look any better with jacking off your wiimote? :D
Supreme!
Now an artist doing “the robot” will have sound that will automatically go along with their motions… hehehe!
But really; Awesome Job!
i’ve had an idea brewing about performance based music production, but i’m not too mechanically enclined nor very program-language savvy. either way, it’d be a freakin’ sweet idea to put into action. i see how you guys like to hack random video-game controllers and other button-oriented things and i thought, hey, why not develop some way of turning ANY video-game controller, external numeric keypad, keyboard,etc into a MIDI device. can you imagine the applications for musical performance especially with this new age of musicians. anybody got any feedback? maybe there’s already something similar and i just haven’t found it yet.
Wow what a nice work, i liked this blog, very interesting, i am not much into hacking part so this was something new and very helpful for me t o know about it.
@AJ: there are a few tools that allow exactly what you describe.
to name a few:
-MJOY turns standard joysticks and gamepads into MIDI controllers. pretty straightforward.
-MiJoy ($$, VSTi only) does the same thing but has a few more options
-GlovePIE: total madness. accepts anything as an input device including Wiimotes, can control MIDI and OSC (besides emulating any other input device) and can be fully scripted.
wonder why the webcam sections of this video are mirror imaged ? if you look at the posters behind him all the writing is backwards
Very neat! What sort of AI are you using for the gesture recognition?
@Glen: I recorded that video with Photo Booth on mac, which mirrors everything. I didn’t notice it until I uploaded it to vimeo :) stupid!
@Jeff: the AI comes from the WiiGee java wiimote gesturing library… it uses hidden markov models. Much credit to the WiiGee guys, without them, I wouldn’t have been able to do this.
AJ What you want is a CV to MIDI interface. Old synths (pre midi) used to use voltage levels to fire off keys on a slave keyboard. You can find models of these that may be a little pricey but they let you vary the voltage input levels, which would be useful to you ie output of said walgreen’s videogame device into CV that converts to MIDI. There are also a number of MIDI controlled power outlets for the randomization of devices or lights as it was made for. My MIDI days are a bit past at this point, but I am slowly rebuilding my arsenal of relatively sweet machines. Sorry if you already knew about this stuff, not sure about your level of savvy, just trying to help spark ya know :)
I’m with ya though on the mix of circuit bending and the power of MIDI. I am really thankful that the developers were smart enough to leave open parameter slots and gave it to the world free :)
DMX has always seemed like its roided-out, asshole older brother lmao.
If ya really want these things though holler back and I’ll see what I can dig up yo.
-bc
Like many others I was looking for an easy “how to” about making music with my WiiMote, I couldn’t find it so I wrote my own. Check my website:
http://www.winko-erades.nl/
Regards,
Winko
Hey, great stuff man…. really impressive.
Keep it up