Oli Shaw

A short teaser for a new installation and ongoing project: Webcam Piano 2.0. All the music you hear is being created in realtime based on analysis of live camera input and gestural motion tracking, smarter and sexier than before. Written in C++ with openFrameworks.

msavisuals.com/webcam_piano_2

Webcam Piano is an ongoing project researching interpretation of movement into sound, primarily classical influenced (though not necessarily western), traditional sounding music as opposed to abstract electronic audio or soundscapes. My main aim is to create an instrument that sounds conventional - and is governed by conventional musical rules established over centuries of musical and social evolution - but is performed via a highly un-conventional - yet hopefully very intuitive - approach, allowing users to get deeply involved within minutes, if not seconds of starting to play with it.

The first incarnation of Webcam Piano came about as a little experiment in 2008, as an opensource Quartz Composer patch. This was shortly followed by an opensource Java / Processing implementation and again quickly followed by an opensource C++ / openFrameworks implementation which also evolved into a large scale multi-instrument rave / installation at the Glastonbury festival.

Webcam Piano 2.0, uses much smarter algorithms to try and understand motion and interpret how the person (or people) are moving and what kind of sounds they might be wanting and expecting to create with their movements. It also offers a simple gestural interface to switch between 3 (potentially more) different musical modes and color schemes, each representing a different emotion and feel.

Webcam Piano 2.0 (along with Gold) is currently on show at the XBox Kinect Galleries in Covent Garden, London, UK (though not linked with XBox Kinect technology in any way).

A quick app I put together this morning as a response to Todd Vanderlin's AR scratching ( vimeo.com/4312616 ). The app uses the accelerometer of the ipod touch to control the speed of a 'vinyl record' on the ipod screen. Slowing down the record and speeding it up is just a matter of controlling how fast you spin the device.

Next up scratching!
Track is Full Clip by Gang Starr.

Project page: fffff.at/spinning-vinyl-ipod-app/

Note:
It only really works on the ipod touch 2nd gen as the case design is perfect for spinning on smooth surfaces. Might have to make a little spinning attachment for all the other ipod/iphone djs :)

Thanks to Zach Gage's excellent ofxALSoundPlayer class! And also Memo of MSA Visuals for the accelerometer addon which I am using quite heavily!

The arrangement includes six exceptional exhibits from the world of sounds and acoustics. At first sight looking trivial, each object incorporates a very unique ability.

The magical character of each object is accompanied with a little story, almost completely concealing the existence of technical components such as speakers or sensors. Only small connection ports as well as the uniform black finishing point to their unusual abilities.

Processing is used for recording live audio input, modifying the playback and generating digital sound according to sensor data.

In form and functionality all these exhibits pursue John Maeda’s „Simplicity“. They are enjoying to use, they are surprising and one wants to explore and investigate them.

geschoir.de/soundobjects/
processing.org/
sonia.pitaru.com/
arduino.cc/