Comments on: Sequencing Beats with Bubble Gum (Tangible Interface War!)

By: Create Digital Music » Futuristic Music Design: Competitors, Judges, Teaser Videos and Photos

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:16:27 +0000

[...] projects: the Bubblegum Sequencer (previously on CDM), The Box custom hardware with colored lights + Reaktor ensemble, the surface-temperature tangible [...]

By: nelson

nelson — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:04:34 +0000

@travioso: I think you’re totally right about making things accessible and it’s probably one of the most exciting thing about tangible interfaces. I would really like to see more interesting work done with mappings though.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:51:16 +0000

I should add, I think starting with something basic musically is absolutely essential. That’s part of why having the reacTable’s library out there is so nifty — that you have people iterating, working on this, making better and better ideas. But, yeah, starting with something overly complicated can keep you from getting to that first step.

By: Oh Travioso

Oh Travioso — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:11:51 +0000

@nelson: My goal with the cubeats, light up cubes I posted above, was to give someone with no ability instant access to making music. And if they have some talent, it should come through. As a result, the step sequencer seems kind of like the quintessential way to make accessible music in a no skill needed kind of fashion.

However, what’s nice about these interfaces is that they are open. There’s no reason a new way to interpret the data couldn’t be done. For instance, the rods contain many magnets that are levitating. The magnets could be “played” causing them to spring up and down injecting energy into the system and then dynamically dying out. It could be a sort of space age piano or organ.

By: Kyle McDonald

Kyle McDonald — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:49:35 +0000

@nelson: I agree that it’s sad when people stop at “the sequencer”, which is why I did the webcam + screen thing (which is just reacTABLE with the camera flipped around). I’d rather augment the screen with physical objects than adding more “flashing LEDs” (sometimes the sexiness of LEDs overwhelms the ubiquity and ease of LCDs…). I’d like to explore and prototype some more “sensor”/interface types rather than develop specialized electronics (a la ball bearing sequencer).

As an aside, I learned about the bubblegum sequencer after developing the skittle sequencer. When I read over their paper, one thing surprised me: hands can interrupt the data. I had a really simple situation to this: if the boundary circle around a “sensor” is even partially obscured, don’t trust the data inside the circle. This principle should expand to other “sensor” types (slide sensors, position sensors, etc), but makes it hard to update in real time.

By: arctic-sunrise

arctic-sunrise — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:15:25 +0000

yeh it can be done with like director or something, you can use a webcam and some software which uses either colour,shape or movememnt as a trigger to send midi date or to trigger sounds etc.
my friend did something like this ages ago for his piece at college, although he is a lecturer now and his teacher was tomato (underworld vids)

i still find this fun, but agree you could do some amazing things with it.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:41:26 +0000

if someone comes up with a controller for the Ableton Live envelopes, i’d be impressed

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:22:51 +0000

@nelson, I agree there’s more potential.

Granular synthesis, anyone?

Erm, sorry, guess that’d be granulated sugar synthesis?

By: (noou)

(noou) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:22:30 +0000

oh oh Travioso! En garde! See you at NIME then! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gbAjeLD7MY

By: nelson

nelson — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:23:13 +0000

This is a good example of the depressing side of a lot of new interface designs, people come up with pretty inventive ways of capturing data and then just use that data to control a sequencer. Its really uninspiring no matter how many flashing LEDs your tangible has.