Eric Singer, creator of musical robots and maestro of LEMUR, the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, has unveiled a new wireless sensor-to-MIDI interface. It’s quite a bit pricier than the non-wireless MIDI models at US$495, but the payoff is a complete kit for wireless performance that promises to be resistant to both latency and interference. The receiver can be connected via either USB or MIDI, and the sensor unit has 20 inputs which you can mix and match as up to 10 analog ins and 20 digital ins. Put the sensor/transmitter unit wherever you like, then transmit data wirelessly to the receiver — so the sensors could be strapped to a dancer while a computer or synth receives the data elsewhere.

I hope to have a hands-on demo soon, but in the meantime, here are the specs — just in case that wireless project can’t wait any longer.

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.

Yes, just in time for the summer grilling season. Hercules — known in the 80s for their video cards and more recently as makers of a rather flimsy DJ controller — have introduced a toy-like wireless DJ controller. As a serious “controller,” it’s not much good; it’s only slightly evolved from remote control. As a toy, though, it’s quite cute and I imagine someone would have some fun with it.

Plug a receiver into USB on your Windows PC, and the Hercules controller wireless manipulates included DJ software. Two LCD screens show which MP3/Windows Media WMA track is playing, and there are controls for two-channel mixing and jog wheels for very basic scratching. It’s just over a pound, even with batteries. Apparently for amusing friends, family, children, and pets, there are even sound effects (applause, loops). Hercules promises “House parties, BBQs and family functions will be even more fun than ever.”

Silly as this gadget may be, I’d love to see a serious music controller that’s simple, wireless, lightweight, and battery-powered. So who says you can’t learn something from Hercu–

Augh! My hands were slippery with barbeque sauce and I dropped my wireless DJ controller! It’s on fire! Mmmm … burning plastic.

Wireless DJ Mixing Controller (actual product name, apparently composed from Google keywords; European product site so it says “whilst”)
Via FutureMusic.com, who don’t like things that are white and respond in general, “Yeesh!!”

Not sure about North America, but in the UK it’s £59.00 Inc Vat.

We’ve already seen the Nintendo DS used as a wireless WiFi MIDI controller. But if you’re longing for some good, old-fashioned, hard MIDI connections to your DS, too, you’re now in luck.

Natrium42, the creator of homebrew-launcher classic PassMe, has built a multi-purpose serial device for the DS called DSerial. Via his schematics, you can support both MIDI input and MIDI output via standard 5-pin DIN cords.

That’s cool enough, but of course you need something with which to use all that MIDI goodness. Tobias Weyand has updated his DS MIDI application so it now supports both wifi MIDI connections (to a computer) and hardware, cabled MIDI connections (to MIDI-compatible synths, keyboards, controllers, effects, guitar controllers, etc., etc.) That makes your DS into an all-purpose MIDI controller for everything you own. Since the previous name, DSMIDIWiFi, doesn’t cover the full range, Tobias has redubbed the application DSMI. (Sounds like some evil branch of the US Defense Department creating killer, mutant dolphin cyborgs. Actually stands for DS Music Interface.)

And this should soon get even better: Tobias is working on keyboard support via DSerial and DSMI for his DS tracker, NitroTracker, which would make the DS into an all-in-one mini music studio.

Grab your soldering iron and your DS and read up on the details.

The hardware hack (DSerial + MIDI) for adding input and output jacks:
MIDI In/Out Hardware for DS [Natrium42 blog]
Schematics and instructions for MIDI on the DSerial wiki

The software side, for wifi support and/or communications via DSerial + MIDI:
DSMIDIWiFi gets DSerial support and becomes DSMI [0xtob’s DS coding blog]

In case you missed this in comments, CDM reader Trademark has rigged a quick demo of how scratching with the Nintendo Wii remote might work. To manipulate the audio, he’s using the open source Mac/Linux audio programming environment SuperCollier:

If you think of this as a replacement for vinyl, you’ll naturally be disappointed. (The same is true of those plastic jog wheels.) But, while this lacks the control needed for DJing, what it does demonstrate is the accuracy of the acceleration data from the Wii and other similar accelerometer sensors. In fact, you can think of the scratching as a sonification of that movement. I expect more projects may soon grow out of new ways of assigning sound to gesture in the future — and, as proof of concept, this is impressive. Keep them coming; thanks, Trademark!

Could the Nintendo Wii remote liberate DJs from wired hardware, freeing them to wave their arms around and make embarrassing dance moves? DJ ! hopes so.

DJ ! (read “DJ Shift 1″) has devoted himself entirely to the Wii controller for DJing, in what he calls WiiJing or “wireless DJing.” This “mashup DJ” says he hopes wireless DJing will become an art in itself, so this isn’t just a one-off gimmick — he actually wants it to catch on. To that end, he’s set up a complete blog with daily tips and thoughts on the subject:

DJ WiiJ: The First and Original website dedicated to Wireless DJing with Nintendo Wiimotes

To give you an idea of what he’s doing, here are two videos. (Via onlyhousemusic.com, the amazing Spanish-language house music portal.)

The secret sauce: Traktor, plus GlovePIE for Windows, a powerful utility not only for mapping the Wii to MIDI, etc., but other game controllers, as well.

I have to say, what he’s doing is pretty entertaining — more so than a lot of DJ sets I’ve heard lately. I only have one question, though, which is that everything he’s doing could be easily accomplished with old-fashioned buttons. It’d be less fun to watch, but that’s essentially what all these big arm movements are doing: most of the acceleration data is getting turned into on/off triggers. So there’s not a musical equivalent to all of the arm-waving. Nothing wrong with that per se, but I’m still interested in translating all those gestures into actual sound. That may lead to a melodic device rather than a DJ gadget.

What would you like to see the Wii do? We won’t be dedicated to the Wii here at CDM any time soon — who would talk about parrots? But I do plan some Wii projects of our own over the next few weeks.

If you’re planning to build a creative new instrument or interface for music, and you don’t already have the open source Arduino project on your watch list, you should put it there. Chris O’Shea at Pixelsumo brings some great new goodies for Arduino lovers via the Italian project site / tutorial site / shop Tinker.it:

This didn’t take long. Someone has already begun using the Wii controller to trigger samples and settings in Ableton Live. (Thanks, Johan Larsby — happy holidays to you, too!) One-handed, wireless DJing is born:

The wiili server is back, so that Wiki is your best source for how-to information. In this case, what we’re seeing is presumably the Windows-based route: something like BlueSoleil for pairing via Bluetooth, and GlovePIE for interfacing with the Wii (or any other class-compliant game device, if you like) and scripting commands to translate control into MIDI.