This is a demo of Gannon’s awesome DIY Speak ‘n’ Spell Rock Band DIY mashup, the Speak N Spellbinder.

Check it out and leave a comment with your thoughts!

via mimsey:

Circuit bent speak and spell. For more info go to http://www.mygannon.com

Tod Machover of MIT’s Media Lab is devoted to extending musical expression for everyone — from virtuosi to amateurs, and in the most diverse forms — from opera to videogames (Guitar Hero grew out of his group).

At TED2008, he talked about what’s coming next, from new tools for music creativity to the world’s first robotic opera. The video also features an incredible performance by Dan Ellsey, a young man with cerebral palsy who creates and performs music using tools developed in the Media Lab. Ellsey performs his My Eagle Song.

Guitar Hero World Tour will marry Guitar Hero’s guitar gameplay, with a cooperative band experience that combines the most advanced wireless instruments with revolutionary new online and offline gameplay modes. The game will feature a slick newly redesigned guitar, a genuine electronic drum kit and a microphone, as well as an innovative Music Studio music creator that lets players compose, record, edit and share their own rock and roll anthems, along with online Band Career and 8-player “Battle of the Bands.”

In a nutshell, Guitar Hero World Tour will let you create your own tracks that can then be played within the game. Users will be able to share tracks with others online.

The game’s Music Studio lets you create digital music tracks from scratch, using all the instruments, and then use the tracks for playing in the game. Music creators will also be able to share their recordings with their friends online through GHTunes where other gamers can download their unique compositions and play them.

Pricing and release date have not been announced yet.

According to Activision, Guitar Hero World Tour will deliver the most realistic drum experience ever in a video game with an authentic electronic drum kit. Featuring three drum pads, two raised cymbals and a bass kick pedal, the drum controller combines larger and quieter, velocity-sensitive drum heads with soft rubber construction and is designed to be easy to set up, move, break down and store.

“With Guitar Hero World Tour and the game’s groundbreaking Music Studio, we are once again delivering unprecedented innovation that has the potential to revolutionize consumer generated music,” said Dusty Welch, Head of Publishing for RedOctane. “With the introduction of our advanced high-quality new wireless instruments, in-depth customization options and advanced online functionality, the game enables music fans and gamers globally to share in the most social and expressive music experience ever.”

Guitar Hero World Tour also intros a Battle of the Bands mode which allows eight players to join online and challenge each other band-to-band to determine who is the best of the best. In the Band modes, up to four players can jam together, online or off, as they progress through the game, and in single-player Career Mode, players can jam on any of the instruments in branching venue progression enabling them to rock out in the order of their choice.

The MIDIator is a new synth DIY project that turns a PS2 controller into a MIDI controller.

The current firmware supports remapping of the buttons to different notes or controllers. It’s based on a PIC microchip–full, explained source code and instructions for making modifications are supplied.

Features:

• Supports official PS2 controllers, cheap knockoffs and wireless controllers… and now the guitar hero controller, including the wammy bar and tilt sensor.
• Analog joysticks control pitch bend and several controllers (or whatever you want them to do)
• Three modes: buttons play MIDI notes, send controller messages (pressure sensitive buttons), or they toggle on / off controller messages so you can mute and unmute tracks.
• LCD and menu system for mode switching and remapping the buttons. See the instructions below for more info, but you basically press start, the button you want to remap, and then up/down arrows to remap.
• 3 LEDs for feedback: power, sign of life, and/or whatever else you want.
• Requires DC power supply 7-15 VDC, positive centered barrel plug.

The kit is $60. There are currently cash incentives available for people contributing new features to the project.

With the current version you can:

• play 2 octaves of an 8 note scale at a time
• change the starting note anywhere in the range of a regular keyboard
• change octaves
• change keys
• change tonal modes (Ionian, Mixolydian, Lydian, Dorian, Aeolian, Phrygian, Locrian)
• change the timbre of a sound
• change the resonance of a sound
• use the whammy bar to pitchbend
• play chords in the mode you have the guitar set to (major/minor/etc.)
• rock out with a video game toy

Here’s a high-level flow for the MIDI controller:

Guitar –> Arduino –> LEDs & MIDI –> external MIDI device.

Details are available at the Slapyak site.

Here’s a short video of the Guitar Hero MIDI controller in action:

Here’s something out of left field:

Shredz64 is a modern day game for the Commodore 64 that makes use of the Playstation guitar controller hooked through the PSX64 interface.

Its design is modeled after the popular “Guitar Hero” series, geared toward the ability to play along to your favorite C64 music on the guitar. Correctly played notes increase your score and applause meter, while incorrectly played notes decrease your applause meter. If the crowd stops applauding, you’re out!

Additionally, Shredz64 features the “shredocity” meter that allows for extra points when you’re doing an awesome job shredding to your favorite chiptune.

With Shredz64, the fun doesn’t stop when you’ve mastered all the included songs. You can add your favorite SID files to the game and record your own custom notes, or download songs other people have created – Shredz64 keeps rocking nonstop.

Download Shredz64 from the Synthetic Dreams site.

Included Tracks

• Axel F Remix – Nantco Bakker [Difficult]
• Dreamball – Johan T. Enyedi [Easy]
• Ex State of Mind – Michal Hoffmann (Randall) [Difficult]
• Ghostbusters – Roger Duijckaerts (ReD) [Difficult]
• Hotel California – Tomas Danko [Medium]
• Lick My Guitar – Hein Holt (Hein Design) [Easy]
• Stairway Intro – Nantco Bakker [Easy]
• Supremacy – Jeroen Tel / Maniacs of Noise [Medium]
• Zak McKracken Remix – Roger Duijckaerts (ReD) [Difficult]
• Zelda Overworld (Final Version) – Sascha Zeidler (Linus) [Difficult]

DJ Tech Tools’ Ean Golden posted this fun video of himself DJing with a Guitar Hero Controller:

Arcade buttons are cool but taking a plastic guitar into the crowd and taping away a solo is some next level fun. In the past 5 years I have experimented with just about every piece of midi gear out there so now its time to raid the game controller closet and continue to find new ways of mixing 2 songs together. The crazy thing is how well cue point juggling techniques translated to the Rock Star guitar. It may seem like a limited controller but with 5 buttons, a 2 way strum bar and some whammy action you can do a lot with a little. I tried every guitar made for guitar hero and in the end this Rock Band edition for the PS3 works the best and offered the most flexibility.

Part of a larger controllerism movement that’s starting to shape up…..

The Scratch Blaster is a prototype controller combining a portable turntable and a Guitar Hero controller.

Cool, but I’d rather see a real electronic music game!

A free video game for Mac & Windows, Synthesia, is generating a lot of buzz as a sort of Guitar Hero for keyboard players.

Synthesia loosely follows the Guitar Hero format — music tracks appear visually on screen, and your challenge is to play the correct notes on a keyboard. Unlike Guitar Hero, however, Synthesia actually helps you learn how to play music using a real MIDI keyboard and MIDI song files. Several MIDI songs are included, including popular themes from video games. More are available from various sites on the Internet.

You can practice left-handed and right-handed parts separately and slow songs down if you’re having trouble with particular parts. There’s also a scoring component that judges you on accuracy and speed.

Once you’ve loaded in the MIDI track you want to play, you tell Synthesia which instrument or instruments you want to play, then click on the Play Song button, and the game begins.

The game is actually a bit more Mario Teaches Typing than Guitar Hero, but it’s free and it’s for keyboardist so give it a try and if you like it consider giving the author a bit of PayPal love.