As an addendum to the last story, Ivica Ico Bukvic sends along an example of the [myu] Max/MSP + Unity game engine combination in action. Here’s the surprise: Unity isn’t generating visuals. Instead, Unity simulates ripples created by movement in the space, and builds physical models that are sonified and spatialized by Max/MSP.

Speaking of work involving art museums and the combination of Max and Unity, VJ Anomolee notes in comments his own work with the pairing. Lightbent Synth is an in-progress piece with alternative controllers and sensors that produces sound with a novel visual representation (sound’s very quiet in this preview — more hopefully once it progresses):

Lightbent Synth from VJ Anomolee on Vimeo.

Ivica explains the top work:

Let’s start with the important bit: the Traveler really is a mobile interface. It weighs under four pounds and fits into a backpack; it’s actually a little lighter and more compact than a typical 15” laptop. Now, if your input and output needs are limited (a mic in, headphone out, and stereo out do suit a lot of folks just fine), your options are obviously many. But the Traveler manages to be this small and pack an absurd amount of I/O and functionality into that small space.

Audio interfaces tend not to get a whole lot of updates, but MOTU has been steadily upgrading the Traveler. New in mk3:

Our friend David Battino writes from O’Reilly Digital Media site to share the massive reader response they got to the Zoom H2 recorder. (The H2 is a smaller version of the H4, which made a guest appearance of sorts on Morning Edition this week.)

Mark Nelson didn’t manage to make this his fifth portable flash recorder review in Hawaii, but he made up for it in depth. His review of the Zoom H2 is almost 5,000 words and contains surround-sound links galore as well as some nifty audio examples.

What’s especially cool was that it became a collaborative review after I asked readers what features they wanted us to test when the H2 finally shipped. They piled on with questions, driving my blog to #1 on the whole O’Reilly Network. At last count, I had close to 300 comments. One reader even wrote a Mac plugin to convert the H2’s quad recordings to 5.1.

So, there you have it: mobile recording geekery can have mass appeal!

Review

Pre-discussion

Kirsty Komuso is documenting a class project to use Wii gaming controllers to manipulate sound. The secret: feed the students pizza. (Hey, low blood sugar is most definitely not helpful when working with interactive projects.)

It is amazing what you can achieve with a class of advanced interaction design students, fuelled [sic] by 12 pizzas and a couple of toys (Wii Bluetooth remote controllers). In our class, students are designing spatial interaction projects that can take the form of art installation, informative sonification/visualisation or augmented hyper-instrument design (gesture performance interface)

Wii spatial sound control [Sonic Yoshi]

I like their approach: take the Mac-based aka.wiiremote object for Max/MSP, hook up lots of stuff, and see what happens!

Kristy also points to something I hadn’t seen before: Simon Morris has a sound project that uses skateboards as wireless sensing controllers for music. The result: the skateboarder becomes a “composer.” (And, as in traditional composition, you wipe out and fall on your ass a lot.)

Musique Concrete: Transforming Space, Sound, and the City Through Skateboarding [Project Page]
Skate/Sound Presentation at Kolin Koulu Middle School [The Real Simon Blog]

Skateboards? Nintendo? Pizza? I’m sure we’ve got the kids interested by now. Darnit, I’m hungry and want to play Zelda.

Contained in the Apple Final Cut Studio 2 announcement is a new version of Apple’s video-savvy sound editor, Soundtrack Pro. Unfortunately, Apple still hasn’t restored the a la carte, Soundtrack-only purchase option — you have to get Final Cut Studio to get Soundtrack Pro 2. But the new release does build on some of the unique interface ideas of the first version, while adding the key capabilities the first version lacked — namely, usefulness for actually creating soundtracks. And look closely at these screen shots, and you just might see something of the next Logic. (Yeah, I know, you wanted solid information, but it wouldn’t have made sense to talk about a music product like Logic at a broadcast production show like NAB, where Final Cut Studio 2 was launched. When Apple’s ready, I’m sure we’ll hear from them.)

The big news here: Apple is certainly making an effort to push how we edit, in terms of spotting for video and interfaces for surround and effects. We’ll have to see if they pulled it off, and if these paradigms can effectively “trickle up” to their flagship DAW — and whether other developers can push even further in the same direction.

New in 2: