Evan has been hard at work on his free Wii remote drum machine for Windows, and he’s got a fantastic new version with an updated interface, more features, and nunchuk adapter support. All you need is a PC (or Mac) running Windows, a Bluetooth adapter, and Wii remote. (Hey, speaking of which, anyone know if this works with the Mac Bluetooth adapters and Boot Camp?)

My Wiimote Drum Kit [thisisnotalabel.com, Evan's site]

The basic idea: make a hitting motion, get drum sounds. (It uses a straight trigger, meaning it’s likely to be very reliable.)

Advanced Readers: Program Your Own

Just in case you’re interested in programming your own project (yeah, I know, lost 95% of the room there), there are solutions for interfacing with the Wii. Evan used Brian Peek’s managed library for .Net (C#/VB.NET):

Managed Library for Nintendo’s Wiimote [Coding4Fun, a great site for MS-platform programmers]

There’s also a beta-version Java library out there called WiiRemoteJ, though that also seems to be Windows-specific. (Someone who knows about Java Bluetooth support, feel free to chime in; that’s beyond my knowledge level.)

Wiimote via Java [Willi.org, the awesome wiki/community site for all things Wii]

More Wii Music Control

Wii Sound Spatialization, Aided by Pizza
Wii as Lightsaber: More Kyma-Synthesized Goodness, But the Original was Cheaper

Another tool, this with quite a few more options, via looping capabilities from Max/MSP:
Free Mac Looper for Wii Controller, Wii MIDI Hacking Round-up

..and my personal favorite demonstration of Wii remote as musical interface:
Expressive Wii: Open Sound Control - MIDI - Wii - Kyma on Mac