Gibson Guitar may require a new column here on CDM, titled something like “what the $&*((*&$ can you possibly be thinking??!”

Sure, it was strange enough when Gibson started a patent dispute with Guitar Hero game developer Activision because it claimed to own the patent for anything “simulating a musical concert experience.” (Jeez, I’m glad Gibson hasn’t been to a couple of my gigs.) Never mind that their patent involved pre-recorded concert footage and a head-mounted virtual reality apparatus and had no similarity whatsoever to Guitar Hero. Never mind that they’ve waited years into this franchise, almost a decade into their patent, and over a decade into music games to both to notice.

Now things get weirder.

Gibson is suing Harmonix, developer of Rock Band. (Unlike Guitar Hero, Rock Band appears to lack a Gibson instrument license — but the suit covers Gibson’s supposed game patents, not Gibson’s guitars.)

And they’re suing Viacom, because Viacom is Harmonix’s corporate parent.

And they’re suing Electronic Arts, the publisher.

And they’re suing GameStop. And Amazon.com. And Toys ‘R Us. And Target. And Kmart.

And they’re suing Wal-Mart. (Oh, I’m sure that will end well. I can’t imagine Wal-Mart is a big outfit with armies of lawyers or anything like that.)

Want to make music and motion with unusual inputs, like Wii controllers, Lemur multi-touch touchscreens, Monomes, and (now) 3D mice? OSCulator is a wonderful app that supports OpenSoundControl and sends MIDI events, with support for some hardware that can’t be supported any other way. The new 2.5 version adds new stuff:

• SpaceNavigator 3D mouse device support
• Mouse support
• Raw IR data from the Wiimote controller (Nintendo Wii)
• AppleScripting
• OSC Forward
• Keyboard combos
• “Meta events”

Software like Max/MSP and Reaktor will support OSC natively, but using MIDI input and output, you can hook up Kyma workstations and any MIDI software under the sun.

Software is pay-what-you-will, with a US$29 minimum.

Osculator page and manual

Camille Troillard is the wonderful musician you can thank for this tool, a member of the band Neimo which evidently is coming stateside, so stay tuned!

The idea of Game Day this week was simple: a bunch of you sent a bunch of game-related links all at nearly the same time. If this kind of convergence happens again, we’ll do it again. In the wake of all this game-y music goodness are quite a lot of additional resources. So here we go. In case you missed it:

• Hacking a Wii Guitar Hero guitar to work with a synth
• Two free software solutions for making music with your Wiimote on your PC
• Free software and DIY hardware makes your Game Boy Color a real MIDI instrument (with jacks and all)
• If you don’t have friends, get friends, or in my case, find a friend who can afford an Xbox 360 and Rock Band. Sigh.
• When that Rock Band purchase makes you too poor to buy other drum pads, use your Rock Band pads

What’s that? Surely you don’t think I’ve become one of those blogs that does big link round-ups just to distract you. No, there’s still more to tell.

All this Wii waggling could be pretty useful for visuals. So on Create Digital Motion, we’ve got a few more tips, including a library that lets your Wiimote talk to Flash apps on Mac. (Now, Windows, anyone? Or even Linux?)

Still not enough Wiigling about? Be sure you see our coverage of a WiiWiiWiiWii instrument, Wii with Deckadance for DJs, and OSCulator for sending OpenSoundControl and MIDI on Mac.

Patryk Laurent was so inspired, he put together his own Wii strumming app, free for Mac (uses Java). And heck, he’s a Neuroscientist, which I find impressive. Neuroscientists must not have a fight song or theme tune or whatever, because he does what everyone else does and plays Mario. Patryk: I challenge you to write “Neuroscience: The Original Soundtrack” and get back to us.

Lastly, Chris O’Shea points us to Beats, a new PSP game that plays on the idea of interactive music listening. The results aren’t so exciting — so far this field has a lot more potential than it does realization, so far. But I think no one’s quite figured out what interactive music should be yet, which is kind of exciting.

Just so long as we’ve advanced from Simon. Ah, what a game that was.

Guitar Hero makes you feel too much like you’re in a Japanese video game arcade? (Heck, they have taiko drums and stuff.) Rather use it as a way of reinventing how you play the guitar — aside from, of course, spending thousands on a robot guitar from Gibson or experimenting with new tuning systems?

Here’s yet another Guitar Hero hack, which finds a remarkably complex way around the fact that the controller has five buttons and no frets:

Hmmm… interesting. But I want more acceleration data, so you can create music by tilting your guitar over your head, or throwing it at something. (Preferably something soft, in case you want to reuse it.)

Handy tip: If you’re a man or woman looking for marriage proposals, this could be a way to do it. UK-based YouTuber Jessica sighs, “This is fantastic. I love you. Marry me.” That’s right: post crazy Wii controller hacks, and you’ll break hearts. Imagine what a Pd patch controlling arrays of lights or a homebrewed synthesizer would do. Do I see a Web mash-up of Instructables and Match.com coming on?

Via our forums, a reminder to Team CDM of why we’re working on building new forum software so they’re mo better. (Stay tuned.) Keep the tips coming!

Bless Nintendo for making the Wii controller: inexpensive, lots of internal sensor data (motion sensing, tilt sensing, buttons), elegant design, and standard Bluetooth support allowing it to be used with Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Now there’s free and open source software for making the most of your Wiimote as a musical instrument. First up: Wiinstrument, a multi-purpose percussion instrument, now available for all three operating systems (a Windows version was recently added).

• Plays percussion / drums with gestures
• Use an (in-development) internal sampler with WAV files, or trigger other software via MIDI
• Use tilt for control changes
• Supports tilt, velocity (how much force you use when you move your Wiimote), with acceleration from both the Wiimote and nunchuk
• It works with Mac, Windows, and Linux, via a standard OpenGL-based interface, thanks to the awesome 2D OpenGL library Gosu. (Programmers, take note.)

Of course, drums are just the beginning — you could use this to trigger clips, grooves, visualist videos and animations, whatever. And it comes with demos, tutorials, source code, the lot.

Wiinstrument Release Information
GarageBand tutorial (relevant to other apps, too)
Support information for Windows, Mac OS X Leopard, Linux
Via thread with the creator on our forums

Here is in action.

But, you say, that’s all well and good, but it’s not … air guitar. Today is your lucky day:

A team of artists has turned the Nintendo Wiimote into a controller for an adaptive, 3D sound environment. Claudio Midolo, Edgar Castellanos, Natan Sinigaglia, and Pedro Mari worked together on the project, and have posted extensive technical details if you fancy trying something like this yourself.

Nintendo keeps cooking up innovative new control schemes for its Nintendo Wii console. And if the Wii controller was any indication, you can expect musicians, DJs, and artists will be taking up this latest controller shortly after it’s available. The Wii Fit controller is a force-sensing panel the player stands on; it’s used to measure weight and balance. “Ah, just what I need during a workout,” you say, “an always-on scale to demoralize me.” Amazingly, though, this simple controller is used for some pretty impressive controls, from balance for yoga to leaning weight in one direction or another.

Foot-based controllers are a wonderful thing for music, because we usually greatly overburden our hands with tasks — play guitars and keyboards, twist knobs, run faders, etc. It’s not hard to imagine the Wii Fit board as an expression controller, in place of a pedal. And it shouldn’t be hard to get data out of it, either, since it looks like it also uses Bluetooth, just as the Wii controller does. (Musicians and DJs, among others, have happily employed the Wii remote in creative applications for Mac, Linux, and Windows.)

Previous Wii Coverage on CDM

While we wait, though, I’d like to ask another question: does anyone know of creative uses of foot controllers for music over the years? Most of what the Wii remote does had been done previously in various forms by music researchers, composers, and inventors, up to a couple of decades before Nintendo shipped their remote. That’s not to say Nintendo was ripping off their efforts; on the contrary, it suggests the design of controllers is more than just fad and will continue to evolve.

So — fabulous foot inventions? We’d love to hear them.

Is the Wii controller the new mouse? They’re starting to pop up all over the place, with all sorts of applications. As the villain in Pixar’s The Incredibles says at the end of the film, “When everyone’s super, no one is.” The related principle is, “When everyone has a gimmick, it’s not a gimmick any more.” Result: the gimmick disappears, and people focus instead on sounds and (in the case of Wii) the fun of moving around. And that’s a very good thing. (Hey, we got far more mileage out of the darned mouse than we every should have.)

We saw a proof of concept scratching using SuperCollider and the Wii remote a few months ago. I enjoyed that the results were sonically a little strange. But our friends at DJWiiJ now have more practical scratching set up with Traktor.

More details:

Wiij Scratching Now a Reality - Demo Video Provided

Yes, turntablists, I know — it doesn’t sound so much like normal scratching. As one commenter noted here, though, if you want vinyl, just use vinyl. Here, there’s almost a cartoon-like, digital scratching effect, like what turntablism would sound like in a universe with different physics than our own. This also demonstrates what can be possible with a different controller: you can differentiate what you’re doing in terms of custom software or software setups and … well, practice. DJ ! says he’s practicing, for his part.

Keep the examples coming. Oh, and CDM isn’t becoming the all Wii, all the time network — I’m still catching up after a long weekend, but more soon. I’m hoping you’re also catching up on work, so we’re kinda even.

What? You actually still want more Wii DJing? Fine…