“Augmented Reality” is a fancy term for describing ways of using computer vision to overlay digital intelligence on images. In other words, you can, for instance, scratch a vinyl record using a camera – plus a tag for identifying the object’s position in 3D space.

Cambridge-based designer Todd Vanderlin put together an elegant demonstration of the possibilities here, and his video has accordingly been making the rounds. (See: Synthtopia – and I actually heard about it this morning from a high school friend. The power of the Internet.)

Todd has more details on his site, which includes all kind of wonderful projects, like laser sound fountains and, always favorite around here, creepy circuit-bent baby dolls.

AR Scratching [Todd Vanderlin]

There’s actually some work to this: you need to figure out how the album is spinning. And of course, because this is augmented reality and not reality, there’s real potential here to imagine a new kind of vinyl DJing in which normal physics don’t apply.

From the video description:

I was playing around with some AR markers the other day and came up with this idea. taking just a plain old vinyl record and attaching an AR marker to the label you can track the record in 3D space. The next question was, can you scratch the record?

So by figuring out the velocity of the records rotation and applying it to the payback of the audio you can scratch. There is some digital noise that needs to bee worked out, but sounds pretty good. Its still really hard to scratch, it takes some practice but is super fun. The next step is to figure out some nice triggers for different modes. I like the idea of not needing a turntable but the actual spinning of the record helps with the scratching and playback. I made a couple modes, one where the record is paused and you can just scratch through the song. The other looks for zero velocity for x time and then continues on with the song. If there is velocity you then are scratching and the audio is affected. I think that this project has some legs can’t wait to play more.

I Want My Augmented Reality TV

So, this has sufficiently inspired you and you want more augmented reality? We’ve got more for you.

Digital artist and magician Marco Tempest has just demonstrated what happens when you do card tricks with augmented reality – and he shares some details of his rig:

Virtual Magic: Augmented Reality Card Tricks with Marco, OpenFrameWorks [Create Digital Motion]

We’ve even seen augmented reality climbing walls.

If you’re ready to do this yourself, we have a number of resources:

CDMotion has Andy Best’s tutorial on OpenCV with Processing (not an AR-specific library, but relevant): Getting Started, Popping Bubbles

We’ve also got an in-progress library for use with mapping projections in space for “spatial augmented reality”

A New Year’s video with a library for Flash, Java

A tutorial on getting started with augmented reality using Flash

openFrameworks, a library for C++ coding (which in turn supports multitouch, augmented reality – you’ll see some projects on that page)

Bryan Chung is working on a library for Processing

For all the emphasis on learning how to use creative tools the proper way, it’s often when you misuse a feature that it really becomes a powerful tool. So, in the spirit of some of the “mistutorials” from Ableton’s own Dennis DeSantis, here’s our friend Michael Hatsis of New York’s Track Team Audio / Warper Party / Dubspot with a really unusual way to achieve scratching effects.

You know the Ping Pong effect for its clichéd, stereo-panning echo effects. But here, it goes an entirely different direction: now that Live 8 has added new delay modes, you can create some special effects that don’t sound like the typical effect. Mike manages to warp and bend Ping Pong into something that sounds a lot like scratching. He warns that “this is not meant to replace vinyl nor will it produce a totally authentic sounding scratch sound.” On the other hand, you start to get some sounds that are reminiscent of scratching but sound unique, which I think is a Very Good Thing.

Live 8 users, download the template:

http://www.trackteamaudio.com/videos/scratchtemplatelive8.zip

There’s also some nice discussion happening over on the Ableton blog. (Main request: automation / dummy clips for more sound-warping power.)

Video: Total misuse of a ping pong delay – scratch effects

(And those of you Pd/Max/SuperCollider/Chuck/Reaktor users out there, maybe this will inspire some DIY effects along similar lines.)

Previously:

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Using and Misusing Groove Extraction

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Misusing Frequency Shifter

(and, yes, much as I love Live 8, I welcome other tools, too – anyone interested in tutorials to request / tutorials you want to make?)

Ted Pallas sends along this terrific video of a hacked hardware crossfader, created by John Beez, that slides up and down on rails. Slide the crossfader itself vertically, and you change the pitch. It’s always fascinating to see this kind of solution — a bit like the keyboards that added pitch bend by letting you move the keys in latitudinal motion.

And, for a little extra something, he adds a talkbox, too. The only problem with the talkbox: a tube in your mouth is not the world’s most flattering physical interface.

From the description:

This is the first public view of the Fretless Fader system I designed for use with the Controller One (posted February 22, 2009). With this you can cut and change notes through 2 octaves without taking your hands away from the vinyl and fader. Big thanks to Gizmo at skratchworx.com for the feature! Stay tuned for an in depth look in the next vid.

Check out my band – Blount Harvey
http://www.myspace.com/blountharvey

Seen other attempts to do similar things? Let us know.

Ableton Live controllers are suddenly everywhere, in commercial products and DIY creations. But an in-progress prototype being designed by Serbia-based creator Sasa Djuric, found on the CDM Flickr pool, goes the extra distance to integrate more effectively with the software. The hardware looks more like the on-screen UI, for starters – an elusive objective for many controllers. And by working with the Mackie Control protocol, Sasa is able to make communication between hardware and software fully bi-directional, so the controller gives you essential feedback. There’s even a facility for scratching. The design is based on the popular MIDIbox platform.

Sasa writes with details of what the creation process is like. It’s all still very much in progress, so we’re really excited to see how it evolves into a finished design.

Sasa explains (with videos to follow):

Hi Peter.

As you noticed the controller is still in production. It is in the final stage, but there is still quite a lot to be done. Most boring part of project is finished… assembling, engraving filling, sanding and polishing the buttons. Most of wiring is also done …I hate wires. I couldn`t afford to have messy wiring so I paid special attention to do it tidy because I wanted this controller to be as compact as possible without so really no place for mess.

This controller is designed especially for Ableton Live. There are two reasons for building it myself. First, I really enjoy building my own gear, and secondly, there’s no commercial controller that really comes close enough to what I wanted to have. Beside Live, it could be used with almost the same effectiveness with other music software as it’s heavily based on the Mackie protocol and it is completely configurable. I designed it for myself but I think it is very intuitive for somebody who is using it for the first time. I put a lot of effort into ergonomics and organizing so many controls on a small surface and it was a real challenge. Only thing I wanted to have but I left out is a touchpad, but I can live without it. Most of the digital controls (rotary encoders and buttons) have multiple functions and they are accessed easily using group buttons. Some are reserved for the system, like: window navigation, undo, redo, clip controls, and some are freely assignable for "dub style" sample triggering or FX parameter control. Critical functions like volume, start, stop, record, EQ, cue and sends have dedicated controls and have no multiple functions but it can be changed easily if needed. LEDs are activated from software feedback, not internally which is important for minimizing monitor usage. An interesting feature are LED bars which are common with encoders (LED rings) but not with pots. The controller receives the fader position feedback from Live and represents it as a bar on 15 LEDs. It is designed to be used in combination with faders that have snap function, which means there will be no ugly "jump" if the physical fader doesn’t correspond to the volume position in Live.

All internal construction and buttons are made out of 3,4 and 6 mm laser cut acrylic. I used white sub-panel as I wanted to back illuminate it with white LEDs to have nice rings around the pots, but I might left that idea if space become an issue which is likely to happen. Engraving on the buttons is also done using a laser cutter. Jog wheel is 40 steps optical. Quadrature and top disks are also made out of lasered acrylic. They are mounted on a hard drive spinner motor which serves just as a very durable spinning platform. The core of this controller is Thorsten Klose`s MB64E and MB64 (www.midibox.org). I’m also planing to integrate a MIDI mixer so I it can be used without a PC but only volume controls will be supported. If by any chance I find some more room left at the end I’m planning to integrate a USB sound card. After the controller is finished it will be finally housed into lasercut steel case with aluminum side panels. Those are the plans. But I don’t expect it to changed much.

Best regards and greetings from Serbia.

It’s really brilliant-looking work already. I can’t wait to see the finished project! Best of luck to Sasa with this.

fibra’s photo stream

Months after they cut the cord with long-time partner Stanton and Final Scratch, Native Instruments is not surprisingly back with their own vinyl control solution, Traktor Scratch, and a new audio interface, the Audio 8 DJ.

Here’s the basic specs on the system, and our take on the whole system — including why we’re eager to test it:

Vinyl/CD control: Remember when there were two vinyl control systems, primarily Stanton’s Final Scratch and Serato’s Scratch? Now we’ve got Numark’s CUE, M-Audio’s torq, and NI’s new Traktor Scratch vinyl. So, why would you want to use NI’s system with so many (potentially confusing) choices? NI claims its system uses twice the resolution, offers a failsafe that will work even with a whole channel of timecode not functioning, and boasts minimal “needle-drop” times, along with an unique level of integration with Traktor.

AUDIO 8 DJ interface: The audio interface is what NI teased us with a couple of weeks ago. What’s nice about NI’s offering compared to competitors this week from M-Audio, Numark, and others, is that everything is included: Mic input, turntable ground point and phono pres, MIDI I/O, 8 ins, and 8 outs (yes, even surround DJing is possible). And NI isn’t doing this interface as an afterthought, either: the case is aluminum, the converters are 24-bit/96 kHz Cirrus Logic models, and the latest audio drivers offer latency under 4 ms, and it’s all USB 2.0 and bus-powered. (If you buy just the interface and not the full Scratch product, you still get Traktor 3 LE.)

Traktor Scratch software: A special version of Traktor with full MIDI control, looping, key lock and pitch shift, analog-modeled filters, effects, and two decks, plus automatic iTunes import and Beatport store integration. In other words, it’s a full-featured 2-deck version of Traktor DJ, minus the mixer, recording, and automatic beat-matching. (Come on, you can beat match manually, right?)

Optional Traktor DJ upgrade: If you choose, you can upgrade to the full Traktor for four decks instead of two, software mixing with additional, modeled-analog EQs and filters, recording and overdubbing, more looping, automatic beat-matching, and so on.

The whole package ships with “instant connect” cable snakes (or “multi-core” in NI parlance), time-code vinyl, and time-code CDs — pretty much everything you need except for decks and (if you prefer) your own mixer, though you could mix right in software, especially with the Traktor DJ upgrade.

How does this compare to other options? Well, what impresses me most is that NI has a vision of the complete solution, and that they cater so nicely to scratching on decks. The elements that are missing — decks, control surface, mixer — are the elements most likely to be variable. For instance, you might choose different control surfaces based on whether you’re doing in-computer mixing, and how many channels; the NI system should scale nicely to different users. Compare, for instance, M-Audio’s new Xponent offering: there’s a big control surface, but it assumes you want to use jog wheels, and there’s no audio input capabilities — requiring another device. NI also clearly has an edge with their software; the competitors look nice, but it’s difficult to compare to the upgrade path to the full-featured Traktor.

My only disappointment: like Wally, I’d like to see more interoperability. Why shouldn’t I be able to use one set of vinyl, and DJ a set in Ableton Friday and in Traktor Saturday? One way to do this would be to support the open MsPinky vinyl control system, even if NI considers it inferior. Another would be to provide a plug-in version of their Traktor DJ deck — after all, NI ought to know something about plug-in development, right? It’d be equally nice to see plug-in support in Traktor, especially considering that I hear NI makes a few plug-ins of their own. (Maybe even one ending in “-aktor?)

Still, even the audio interface looks like it could be useful for anyone using decks; there’s nothing stopping you from using Ableton Live with an AUDIO 8 DJ and some decks. I’m glad NI offered these unbundled — again, something competitive products aren’t doing.

Overall, in a NAMM cluttered with DJ products, NI is a clear standout. I look forward to getting a full test for CDM.

By the way, am I the only one who thinks the logo font looks like the website Skratchworx?

Pricing: US$669 for the whole package; US$449 for just the audio interface (with US$119 upgrade to Traktor).
Availability: April/May 2007
Updated 2007-03-23: Zzounds has the unit listed as shipping on April 15th. US$599 for the full package. JL.