Imaginary Instruments: Marker and Paper as Controller
Note Pad from Charlie North on Vimeo.
This charming music video from Charlie North imagines creating your own simple music controllers with a piece of paper and a marker. (There’s some similarity to M-Audio pieces there, too.) Of course, that raises another question: could this actually be done?
Computer vision isn’t quite intelligent enough to work out automatically what’s going on here, but it seems to me that you could get a little closer. Another alternative would be using conductive ink or graphite to make the drawing itself a sensor. I’m going to leave you to puzzle out the rest.
It’s technically still a holiday weekend here in the U.S. of A., so I’m going to keep with the whimsical inspiration for the rest of the day.
13 Comments
Leave a CommentRandy Jones
Check out Kellum and Crevoisier’s 2008 paper Transforming Ordinary Surfaces into Multi-touch
Controllers. More at future-instruments.net.
September 7, 2009 @ 1:22 pm
db3ll
Like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H93kDWI9n08
Conductive ink is what I used, painted on as traces on the non-printed side of the paper.
September 7, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
Simon Lacelle
In a pad controller I’m making using a HUGE Staples calculator, I’m using strips of aluminium foil separated by a sheet of paper with holes at each button as switches merely a milimeter thick, and these are quite responsive.
September 7, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
nezoomie
this is an interesting topic!
September 7, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
dyscode
IT WORKS FOR REAL!!!!
check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlnjb0xuuGQ
I wet my pants watching!!
even more reading the comments.
September 7, 2009 @ 7:20 pm
dyscode
@db3ll
btw. that´s a phrase from Tori Amos’ “Silent all these years”.
now back to the regular programm… :D
September 7, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
db3ll
@dyscode
Yes, and I’ve shamelessly ripped it off in my music one way or another “all these years”. Glad someone noticed, though.
Also, you can make a paper thin fader in much the same way, but it requires a magnet. Cut a slot in a piece of paper, color around the slot with conductive ink (I use the “trace repair” pens sold at electronics supply places… it has a very fine tip), and glue some SVHS tape (resistive side up) under it. Put a thin piece of metal beneath the SHVS tape & use a magnet to conduct between the SVHS tape & the conductive ink. The magnet will stay in position due to the metal (I use package banding) under it, and aside from the magnet, it is roughly the thickness of a couple sheets of paper.
September 7, 2009 @ 7:42 pm
dyscode
@db3ll
you´re welcome. I´ve been a Tori fan myself since Earthquakes.
I am kind of hooked with the fader-thingy -
really!
I love such stuff.
:)
September 7, 2009 @ 8:12 pm
Damon
And you don’t critique songs made with paper and ink midi controllers, you grade them.
In red ink – XX? xX ? A- “Excellent Job, but next time please record on an 8.5 / 11 double spaced rig.”
September 7, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
Kyle McDonald
Ah, Randy mentioned it first — yes this is totally doable with laser light plane techniques!
September 8, 2009 @ 8:19 am
Create Digital Music » Paper, Drawing as Musical Controller: A Round-Up
[...] Imagine drawing an interface on paper, then being able to use it as a musical interface. Or, heck, don’t imagine it – do it. Unfortunately, the kinds of intelligence necessary to make the music video in yesterday’s post just aren’t practical yet. (That is, you could draw a picture of a keyboard, and even use the picture as a music controller, but while you or I could recognize a keyboard from a drum pad and know that line is a fader, a computer would need some sort of advance structure for any recognition to work.) But you can do some really clever things, as folks have shared in comments. [...]
September 8, 2009 @ 11:55 am
Samurai
Oops! Chinese will not like this idea..^_^
Paper models only use for dead man…
September 8, 2009 @ 11:42 pm
fsoup
keyboard controller looks funny – wrong keys and weird ADSR knobs )
September 10, 2009 @ 4:53 am
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