NES MIDI Interface
Project: Proposal for a multimedia playground

As a kid growing up, my favorite video games were multiplayer games. Having spent so much time playing them, it is no surprise that I still desire multiplayer experiences. This NES controller to MIDI converter is another exploration of the connections between sound/music and play/games. It is an interface for sonic collaboration and entertainment.

When used by one performer, the interaction takes on a whole new direction. The performer finds ways to use all the controllers at once. This can be done with the feet, elbows, palms, head, etc.

The controllers as instruments can be used to trigger anything from sonic explosions to calm meditation.

Example Recordings:

Two arpeggiated mbiras with kettle noises and door squeaks:


Improvisational duet with melodious second half:


Noisy upright bass and kitchen noises:


Example video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnOAKusK9lg


Images:

Mon, Aug 18, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: diy, music, electronics, video games, 8-bit, collaboration, midi
Sent to project: Proposal for a multimedia playground

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On Innovation and Electronic Music
Project: Proposal for a multimedia playground

I just spent the last three hours browsing the internet and trying to interface a joystick with Pure Data. I want to create a two-joystick software-based version of the joystick synth. Pure Data has been a frustrating program so far. First of all, there is hardly any documentation available on the web. The closest thing I found to an introduction were two video tutorials on youtube that were helpful, but still not enough to get me really started with PD. I keep leaning towards using MAX MSP because of the clean user interface and less steep learning curve. I am using PD-extended, and the HID joystick examples that it comes with do not work because there are missing objects.

I am evaluating the benefits of trying to learn a complicated software (Pure Data) versus using software with a higher level of abstraction. I could for example, just route the joystick data to Ableton Live and use a pre-made software synthesizer or sampler. These however have a completely different sound quality than the barebones sine/square wave oscillators of Pure Data. But is the use minimalist synthesis just a trend, a sort of intellectual masturbation?

I spend some time each day browsing the web and searching for new interesting videos and projects. Youtube is a good place to do this. While exploring these projects, I can't help but wonder what my and other people's motivations are. Some times I feel like the situation is a constant one-up competition to see who can do the most technically challenging feat. Other times I feel like each person thinks they are the next experimental music auteur - the next John Cage.

The phrase "the next" has a dialectical relationship to history or the past. It refers to a previous who is or will no longer be because the next will take its place. The next would not exist without the past, and the past would not exist without the next. What happens to the present when we are preoccupied by the past and future? Is it ignored?

Just because the earlier pioneers of electronic music used sine waves and square waves because that was all the had, does not mean that we still have to use them with our advanced technology with which any sound is possible. Innovation can draw from history, but it must be about the present, because the goal is, after all, to communicate with people - to share experience and ideas.

Sun, Jun 29, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: diy, music, software, electronics
Sent to project: Proposal for a multimedia playground

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