Create Digital Music » tactile-and-tangible

Get loopy with the DIY $10 Ableton Footcontroller (no soldering required)

michaeluna — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:38:38 +0000

By now you’ve all probably seen that excellent video of Kid Beyond illustrating his usage of Ableton Live. Pretty cool, right? If one had such a system, you could loop yourself playing guitar, beatboxing, etc., all perfectly in sync with programmed drum/MIDI tracks and other performers.

Here’s how to set up your own system in a similar hands-free operation style, for about US$10, without having to solder anything. It’ll take you about an hour once you gather the parts required, or less. No joke.

You will need:

A QWERTY keyboard, preferably with a USB connector. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy an adapter to fit your laptop, which costs extra. You can get one for $7.50 at AllElectronics.com, but you can find them even cheaper at your local thrift store’s “technology pile.” I got mine for $2.

A flathead screwdriver.
Ableton Live. Ed.: Live is a perfect choice here, but you may find this useful with other music apps, as well — or even in a VJ set. -PK

A free keyboard-mapping utility called Autohotkey (if you’re running Windows). If you’re running Mac, the program to use is calledIKey.

That’s it. Here’s how to make it go:

Above: Steps 1-2. Simple enough.

1. You’re going to remove a significant number of the QWERTY keyboard’s keys, leaving only those spaced far enough apart to operate with your foot. Identify which keys you want to keep with a magic marker BEFORE you go hog-wild with the screwdriver, otherwise you’ll lose track of which is which. I ended up with 12 remaining keys, in two rows. Your feet may be smaller or bigger, so experiment with it.

2. Glue some squares of larger, stiff material to the keys to give your foot a bigger target. I used some plastic lenses (20 cents apiece at American Science & Surplus) and hot glue. Epoxy or a plastic welding cement might work better in the long run.

3. Plug the keyboard into your computer and boot up Ableton Live.

4. Download and install either Autohotkey (WIN users) or IKey (Mac).

5. Here’s the almost-tricky part: In Ableton Live, you need to create a new project with six audio tracks. Arm recording on all tracks. Turn off monitoring for all tracks except one.

6. Use the keymappping function (click the “KEY” button in the upper right hand corner of Live’s screen) to assign a keystroke to each track’s “record/play” button. It doesn’t matter which keystrokes you assign, because we’re going to be remapping them anyways. For this example, the keys I used were !,@,d,h,k, l.

7. Create a new script with Autohotkey and enter something similar to what’s pictured below. The 12 keys left on your QWERTY should be put at the start of each line. The idea is that as each key is depressed, Autohotkey remaps those into a sequence of keystrokes.

I chose to have my top row of buttons select the track, delete whatever’s there, and begin recording. The bottom row of buttons hits “play” on the corresponding track, which stops recording and begins looping on the corresponding track. You can re-trigger loops this way also.

Here’s an image of my keymaps in Live and the AutoHotkey script I made. Pretty simple, all things considered. I would be happy to share my blank Ableton set and accompanying AutoHotkey script to any windows users who need a little help getting started.

If you’re running Mac, here’s an idea of what you’ll have to do using IKey. It’s very similar but slightly different. For instance, we permanently glued the shift key down, to skirt some of IKey’s trigger-key rules.

8. Save the script, activate it (you’ll see the AutoHotKey icon appear in your taskbar), and you’re good to go. It’s that easy.

The end result? Not too shabby:

You can hear a track recorded by myself and bandmate Cameron Moore using two MIDI-linked Ableton Live setups here.
Note: Cameron runs Mac and I run Windows, and we had no issues.

Check the forums for a more in-depth discussion, and feel free to ask questions. Also, if you decide to undertake this project, please post your results!

Tweet
Tweet

Music Tech, Sans Mice: Cybersonica 06 Presents Fanciful Sonic Art

Peter Kirn — Sat, 13 May 2006 04:22:55 +0000

Cybersonica is underway in London, bringing with it wild, new sound art. Organizer Chris O’Shea puts it this way:

The works selected . . . move beyond the ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‹Å“screen, keyboard, mouse scenarioÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬™ and respond to physical input, proximity, sound, kinetics, elapsed time and the surrounding environment.

Check out the preview videos, photos, and descriptions at Chris’ site. And if you’re in London, by all means, please go and see this! If you do go, take some notes and photos and send them my way. I know the organizers are hoping for some blog coverage, so let’s not let them down just because I’m across the pond!

Interactive Touchable Fabric: Music by “Casting a Spell”

Peter Kirn — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 05:00:00 +0000

As great as the potential of advanced touchscreens may be, for music and other media applications, touchscreens aren’t much fun to touch. Close your eyes and remove visual feedback, and you’re basically running your finger along a piece of plastic. (You’d think we could figure out a way to at least texture it without losing tracking.) Compare that to piano or drums: musical instruments can be played satisfyingly with your eyes closed. Yeah, you can do that to look “deep,” but the point is, you’re relying on tactile, not visual feedback.

Here’s a promising solution: the Hyperfabric project (via the fascinating ramblings at SteamSHIFT). This stuff is strong (it can support body weight), and lets you actually touch, squeeze, grab, and otherwise manipulate a large-scale fabric surface to control computer-generated imagery. It’s certainly workable as a musical instrument, if you want to be able to, in their words, “press your face into the hyperfabric to release fairies.”

I have no idea how this thing works, though I’m guessing some kind of correlation of pressure with video sensing. It’s commercially available, or you can just ponder what giant spiderweb-like surfaces might someday do for music.

Multitouch Interfaces of the Future: More Expressive, More Flexible

Peter Kirn — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 05:00:00 +0000

There was a time when skeptics thought mice would never catch on. “People will never give up their QWERTY keyboards,” they said. They were half right: now we take both for granted.

Now, more experiments in multi-touch interfaces are appearing by the day. Aside from mysterious Apple patents, we have, via We Make Money Not Art, new research in multi-touch interactions from a team led by Jefferson Han. (Demos pictured.) This isn’t just any touchscreen: not only does it recognize multiple fingers as inputs, but it projects whatever imagery you want in response, enabling new, fluid interfaces, and even responds to force feedback.

Internal tracking allows you to use up to ten fingers at once — that could be both your hands, you and a friend, you and four friends using two fingers each, etc. That much we’ve seen before, in the form of the one shipping product in this category, Cycling ’74′s Lemur.

But this research project features key capabilities the Lemur lacks: instead of fixed, pre-defined, static interface objects, Han’s research features back-projected imagery. That blows open the possibilities of this kind of interface, because it allows the team to experiment with fluid, game-like interfaces that provide the illusion of the tangible world. You’ll see demos of modular sound synthesis, lava lamps, and various other ideas. In other words, the touchscreen is finally as flexible as the computer in the graphics department, only now no longer limited to a single point of interaction (the mouse cursor). Han again applies his Frustrated Total Internal Reflection technique to tracking, the magic behind the multiple touch points. But there’s another twist: force sensing, granting this interface the potential for more realistic expression.

I’m not convinced these interfaces will ever replace the tactile sensation mechanical devices provide, as found on knobs, faders, and musical keyboards. But as computer interfaces, they could fundamentally change the way we relate to software.

Now the question is, who will get to market first with an affordable, mass-market device? The beauty of this research project is that the back projection can be whatever you want. Musicians could benefit from the mass market purchasing such hardware for other applications. Then it’ll be up to us to figure out smart musical applications — sure, the technology is cool in itself, but think how many possibilities there could be for each of those demos?

What does a digital lava lamp sound like?

Multi-touch Interaction Research [Description, QuickTime movie]

Turntable-Controlled Vibrating Chaise Longue

Peter Kirn — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Tokyo-based DJ Daito Manabe has devised a unique use for a turntable: he hooked it up to a multiple-PowerBook rig so you can scratch 34 tracks of sound or sit back in a vibrating chaise longue. I asked Daito how this works, and responded in an email that reads a bit like a poetic riddle:

Chair for the silence consists of two elements.
The first one is a chair that can provide 32 vibrations,
the second is music of 34 tracks for touch and hearing.
People can experience this by sitting in the chair and dropping the phonograph needle.

We can recognize pursuing sensual peculiarity, commonality and interaction
between sounds and vibration by this chaise longue.

The vibrations from vibrators are from 5hz to 120hz,
and sounds from headphone are from 5hz to 80hz.

34 tracks (2ch * 14) sound files are controlled by a signal from Ms.Pinky.
It means people can scratch 34 tracks by one record.

More specs and images after the jump, if that still doesn’t make sense . . .

The secret to this magic is Ms. Pinky, a control record for scratching that can be used with custom software. (An object for use in the Max/MSP modular environment is included with the package.) Now, if you can figure out exactly what’s going on from these diagrams, you’re ahead of me. But it’s a fascinating way of listening to records — er, 34-track audio — er, sitting. Daito has a long resume of other projects involving avant-garde DJing and live visuals.

Related:
More turntable art installations using Ms. Pinky
Ms. Pinky Pets and Friends with links to other art and performance using the system [Ms. Pinky]

Ars Electronica Roundup: Futuristic Tech in Linz

Peter Kirn — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Ars Electronica is one the premiere events of the interactive tech world, and this year was apparently no exception. Good luck deciphering the stream-of-consciousness blog entries on the festival, though; I sure can’t. I’ve tried to pull some of the best references here (via a wiki of weblog action:

Ars Electronica Review [pieceofplastic.com]

Ars Electronica photostream [Flickr]

Tangible interfaces [engadgeted.net], again featuring the ReacTable — see CDM’s musical table roundup

One of the highlights was the Tenori-On, an interactive LED music toy from the creator of Nintendo’s upcoming game ElectroPlankton, as covered here before. But the coolest event sounds like the opening performance “Suspended Engines” (pictured), with video and music live in an engine shop of the Austrian Railway. (Blog details are sketchy, but see Fashionable Technology.) Now, if only they had a train controller for the performance.

DIY Multi-Touch Interfaces and Other Futuristic Tricks

Peter Kirn — Mon, 08 Aug 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Via Pixelsumo comes a fantastic lineup of links to futuristic interfaces for music, etc. If you were impressed by Cycling 74′s new Lemur touchscreen, with the power to let you touch multiple points on a pad simultaneously for controlling music/sound/etc., Jeff Han has built his own. His Frustrated Total Internal Reflection project may sound like some sort of existential experience, but it’s really an optical system for tracking multiple finger touches on a screen. You need a back projector, so it’s not as portable or compact as the Lemur, but watch the video: extremely low latency, extremely high sensitivity. Jeff has other tricks up his sleeve, too: using LEDs for touch control, and volumetric 3D displays using dust, among others. I’m heading to NYU later this week, so I’ll have to see if there’s something in the water. If you’re at Siggraph, go check these out and let us know more!

Music with Force Feedback: Tremor Vibrating Sleeve

Peter Kirn — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 05:00:00 +0000

RÃƒÂ©gine at WWMNA points to Tremor, a “tactile music sleeve is a piece of clubwear that allows the user to ‘feel’ the music that is being played in the club.” Supposedly helpful to those with hearing difficulties.

Hmm . . . not sure which club you’ve been going to, but one generally finds you can feel the music as vibrations without wearing any additional gear. And if you’re a regular, well, pretty much everyone winds up with hearing difficulties.

There is one novelty: vibrations are split into bass, mid, and treble — I do like that idea. (Oh, and it lights up.) There’s an idea here, but it’s not quite fully formed. So what kind of smart clothing gear would you want? (The good news here is they found ultra-slim rechargeable batteries to charge it, which is usually the smartwear challenge.)

Open Source Interfaces for Sound: d-touch Tagged Blocks

Peter Kirn — Fri, 13 May 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Here’s even more open source code for creating new sound interfaces using free-moving blocks for control. We looked at Sonicforms, which is both intended as a project and a repository for information. Chris’ project uses a projector aimed at a tabletop for additional feedback, and IR lights for sensing. That adds cost to the system and makes it less portable (though it does provide a cooler visual interface.)

The d-touch project, in contrast, uses tags on the blocks that are recognized by a simple webcam (fiducial recognition). Advantage: no projector, no fancy interface, ultra-portable, ultra-cheap. Sure, you lose out on the tricky visuals (and, importantly, visual feedback) — but you get the even more mysterious effect of moving around ordinary blocks with strange hieroglyphics on them.

d-touch features cross-platform C++ code (compiled on Mac OS X, but tested on Linux and Windows, too); the code is open source and regularly updated. Give us a buzz if you do something with it, because I can’t program my way out of a paper ba– uh, tangible interface.

Tabletop, Block-Based Music Making: The List

Peter Kirn — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 05:00:00 +0000

There's been an explosion of so-called "tangible interfaces"
for music: the basic scenario is, there's a table, possibly with
projections, and little blocks or objects or projected thingies you can
play around with and move to produce sound.

(Tangible = something physical you can move or touch, as opposed to an
interface that's intangible, like the filter routing in Apple Logic's Ultrabeat, which was designed by aliens who would rather use mental telepathy for control.)

Lately, there have been nearly weekly introductions of slight
variations on this theme, so many that if you've been reading
interactive tech blog near near future, you can't tell your audiopad from your reacTable from your audiocube from your audiocubes. (Yes, those last two are different.) Even Yamaha and Fisher-Price have gotten in on the action.

Martin Kaltenbrunner has heard your cries of anguish and created a huge list of tangible interfaces / music tables,
complete with links to creators, project sites, and publications.
(Don't tell your thesis advisor, interactive technology MFA candidates
– just say you did this research during hundreds of hours at the
library.) Some links are out of date, but it's still quite useful. (via networked_performance)

Oh yeah, make that tables and one sonic banana
– is Martin hedging his bets in case this ridiculous cube phase comes
to an end and people realize that what they really want to make music
is segments of rubber hose? (Me, I think musical stress balls are the real instrument of the future.)

Still not satisfied? Head to Vancouver for an international conference dedicated to new musical interfaces, take pictures, and let us know what you see!