This art installation uses buttons made of light. A projector fills up the walls and ceiling of a room while a webcam monitors the pattern for changes. When the luminosity of a given area changes due to a shadow, a midi event is triggered. The software that controls the system is written in C# and uses the Emgu CV library to handle the image processing. In the video after the break you can see that creating shadows with your hands prompts changes in the image as well as the sound.
[vimeo=http://vimeo.com/7000376]
Subcycles is a sound controller application that [Christian] is using on the third multitouch display that he built. The screen is a sheet of acrylic in an aluminum frame. The image is rear projected onto an area covered with Digiline dispersion film. As with other projects that use the Community Core Vision package, a PS3 eye camera captures the touch information.
This build does a great job of including the audience in what the musician on stage is doing. [Chris] points out that the sight of artists staring at laptops on stage is becoming more and more common. The ‘Minority Report’-like interface that Subcycles uses makes not just for interesting music, but for an added visual reinforcement to the live part of the performance.
[Thanks Mark]
Today we received two very interesting hacks utilizing old cellphones within a matter of minutes of each other – Of course, this means war!
In the left corner we have the Mobile Mobile, a 50 cell phone collection dangling high above our heads by [James]. Loyal readers will remember his last match, a physical realization of the Spinning Wheel of Death. But today, Mobile Mobile tries to keep his title with the use of Twitter and live video.
In the right corner we have competition and newcomer [Timo] and his Cellphone Symphony. With a combined amount of 150 cell phones including sim cards, he is going to be one tough cookie. It’s all down to this folks.
Both utilize MIDI to try and lift spirits this holiday season by playing music and sounds. Servers and custom software are of course both necessities… but who will be the winner? Check out after the break!
Continue reading “Cellphone Hack-off”
Move over Steve and PEART… there’s yet another robotic drummer in town. [Fauzii] tipped us off to his own MIDI-controlled creation – WizardFingers. According to him, WizardFingers is already capable of 64th note rolls at over 250 beats per minute. That’s on every drum simultaneously. Each drum is hit with a lever attached to a linear pneumatic actuator. A laptop running MAX/MSP generates MIDI sequences, which are sent to Doepfer MTC64 board. All of these actuators are hooked up to the board, which sets them off in sequence.
[Fauzii] ultimately hopes to develop AI software that will allow WizardFingers to compose its own tunes on not only a drum kit, but bar chimes and an organ as well. His site documents the whole concept quite well (just watch out for wild cats).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOhzkWZHBfM]
[thrashbarg] missed the sounds of the Commodore 64 and longed to hear the great masters in 8-bit glory. To get his fix, he created a midi device using the original Sound Interface Device from those long-dead systems. He’s interfaced the MOS6581 SID with an Atmel AVR ATmega8 microcontroller. The receiving pin for the AVR’s UART is used as a MIDI-IN connection, with the microcontroller converting midi data into the proper sound generation specs for the SID. The result is the 10 minutes of [Bach]’s Brandenburg Concerto heard in the embedded video above.
We have no idea where he picked up this obsolete chip, but if you want to give this a try, perhaps you’ll have some luck emulating the MOS6581 by using another ATmega8.
We’ve covered sequencers before, but reader [Johan] sent in his latest project that is much more minimalistic approach. Dubbed the BBox, he based his drum generator on an Arduino and an LCD display. Rather than synthesizing sound, the Arduino just outputs MIDI which is then interpreted by his Roland Juno-D. In building the device he used a favorite trick of ours to keep the interface clean. He then found an awesome banana box to use as a case. Although, the project may not be as functional as some of the others out there, it certainly has flair. Video of it in action after the break.
[Peter Kirn] over at Create Digital Music takes an in depth look at the process of adding your own music to Rock Band 2. This involves using REAPER audio production software, uploading your work via the XNA Creators’ Club, and then playing the fresh track on an Xbox 360. Both REAPER and the XNA Club cost money, and the total price comes out somewhere between $100-$160. The process is now in closed beta but a wider beta is expected in September followed by a full release in October.
