Wiimote Hacked Instrument

via eyesuck17:

My first stab at making the Wiimote into an instrument.

Made using Glovepie, PureData, and FM8.Roll controls pitch within a C lydian scale, pitch controls a morph, and 2 simple sequences at 120 BPM are controlled Via the buttons.

It’s all Legend starting tom cruise up in here.

This video captures excerpts from the world’s first live performance of a Beethoven symphony by a digital orchestra (The Fauxharmonic Orchestra).

This performance was part of an ongoing concert series presenting all nine Beethoven symphonies through 2011.

You can get details and more performance examples at The Fauxharmonic Orchestra site.

Do you think you could recognize The Fauxharmonic Orchestra on a recording?

via Fauxharmonic

Steve Mobley demos his Wiimote MIDI theremin.

via shobley:

Quickly creating a Theremin style instrument using a WiiMote, IR LED, softsynth and some “glue” written in C#.

The same thing could be done in MAX/MSP.

This video is a supplement to my presentation at the Sam Ash MIDI clinic.

Shot on location in my Basement Of Glittering Delights ™.

If you would like to try this out at home, check out this page:
http://www.stephenhobley.com/blog/las…

It’s ripe for expansion, as the WiiMote can track up to 4 lights in X,Y and Z.

On Wednesday, May 20, 2009, Paul Henry Smith will conduct the first-ever live concert of a Beethoven Symphony using a digital orchestra, performed by Vienna Symphonic Library’s Vienna Instruments at Holy Name Church in Boston.

This will be the first concert in a series that will present all nine Beethoven symphonies.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra, founded by conductor and composer Paul Henry Smith, sets out to convince audiences that a live performance of a digital orchestra can be as expressive and moving as a traditional acoustic orchestra. In an earlier experiment in 2008, The New York Times called the Fauxharmonic Orchestra “genuinely impressive.”

The live digital orchestral music is realized by incorporating real-time performance control into a preliminary version that Smith prepares during hundreds of hours prior to the performance. For programming the Symphony, Smith relies on the Vienna Symphonic Library’s software instruments.

Accompanying viola and mezzo-soprano soloists, the Fauxharmonic Orchestra will make the most of its technology using wireless Nintendo Wii video-game controllers to change tempo, loudness, balance, timbre, and brightness – the elements a musician typically controls during a live performance. At Holy Name Church, the Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s sound will emerge from an array of Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5 speakers.

Will The Fauxharmonic Orchestra Replace Real Orchestras?

Traditional instrumentalists have worried for years that computers and synths could one day put them out of business. Is that time here?

Maybe so, according to Smith.

“With current financial pressures, orchestras are cutting the performance of new music,” notes Paul Henry Smith. “By contrast, it costs far less for the Fauxharmonic Orchestra to prepare a new work for full orchestra and to perform it many times and in many places.”

Here’s an video that features Smith conducting the Fauxharmonic Orchestra:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While the Fauxharmonic Orchestra still can’t replicate the sound of a traditional orchestra, it’s undeniably musical.

Beyond being a replacement for traditional orchestras, though, the technology could expand the realms of traditional orchestration.

“This technology is best understood as expanding the rainbow of expression,” adds Smith, “rather than undermining the art of orchestral music.”

What do you think of the idea of a Fauxharmonic Orchestra? If you can make it to the concert, let us know how it goes!

WiiToMidi is a free application that lets you convert signals from a Nintendo Wii controller to MIDI signals.

It is a Cocoa application for Mac OS X and uses the DarwiinRemote WiiRemote framework to decode Wii controller signals. It also supports the Nunchuk controller.

The Wii Loop Machine is a piece of software for making music with a Nintendo Wiimote controller. It is loop-based and performance-oriented, somewhat like a very simple version of Ableton Live. 

Version 2.0 is currently available for purchase for $20. It requires Bluetooth and Mac OS X. In addition, version 1.1 is available for free download, as well as several free Wii musical software treats such as the Maniipulator and the Simple Synth.

If you’ve used Wii Loop Machine, leave a comment and let us know what you think!

More Wii Loop Machine action below:

Wii Loop Machine 2.0: Sampling

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wii Loop Machine 2.0: Two hands!

Click here to view the embedded video.

“In this video I show how the Loop Machine can be used with the Siimple Synth to make some wacky two-handed beats. I also show off the sampling capabilities a bit.”

This video demos a variety of ways a Wiimote can be used along with Kyma X.

via inthegray

Ken Moore’s submission for NPR’s National Caroling Party 2008.

The instrument is a homemade Wiimote-powered Theremin (simulator). The technology links a Wiimote controller, infrared LED gloves and a Roland JV-1080 synthesizer to create Theremin-like sounds.

The Evolution Control Committee have invented a rear-projected infrared-activated faux-touchscreen mashup controller…hacked from the Nintendo Wiimote.

It’s a bizarre McGyver – but you got to love the giant screen and the “insanely overloaded Ableton Live” running on it.

According to the ECC, the Mashup Controller is ”the secret sauce that makes The ECC’s Wheel Of Mashup live mashup shows possible.”

If you’re not familiar with the ECC, they claim to have been to have been “creating illegal music since 1986, when copyright infringement was done the hard way.”

When they aren’t creating McGyver’d music controllers, they’re coming up with new euphemisms for sex. As if “doing the mashup” wasn’t good enough. 

Let me know what you think of this 4′ wide Mashup Controller!

This performance video captures Presetsurfer (aka max Min from Fiago) performing live with Monome and WiiMote at the Styrian Stylez festival in in Graz, Austria.

Check out the way he rocks the Monome and let me know what you think.

rockin1208 demos using a Wiimote to control guitar effects:

“To do the pitch bend stuff, I send Wii data to Max/Msp, which then sends MIDI data to my digitech Whammy pedal. Yes, the Whammy pedal has a MIDI input.”

Anybody hack a Wiimote to do MIDI directly?

via Caleb Kraft

Want to try controlling your music software with something new?

OSCulator may be the solution. It’s a Mac program that you can use to allow alternative controllers, like the Wiimote, to control MIDI sequencers, your favorite console emulator or Kyma sound design workstation.

Here’s a video demonstrating using the Wiimote in Kyma:

OSCulator is a free download.

New Features in 2.6:

• French, Italian and Spanish translations
• added the possibility to generate a single MIDI note
• added a simple event logger system (use Console.app to see results)
• preset management system (also preset changing from osc, and wiimote led follows preset #)
• OSC routing editor: forge custom messages or change incoming OSC messages with a graphical editor
• added support for two virtual HID joysticks
• input lock: avoid to make any changes to the document when the lock is on
• added preliminary support for the TUIO protocol
• rewrote event triggering system
• start and stop Wiimote discovery using OSC messages (send /osculator/discovery/start and /osculator/discovery/stop)
• wii guitar hero controller preliminary support
• added the ability to edit multiple lines at once
• added the ability to “split” an input in two (from 0 to 0.5 and 0.5 to 1) in order to get two events from that range from 0 to 1. for example, you can use it with a joystick and assign an event for both directions of an axis.
• added the ability to “demux” a message based on the value of an argument (useful for TUIO protocol and Iannix software)

You can read more about OSCulator creator Camille Troillard and the future of OSCulator in an article (pdf) written by Kenneth Stewart for the SEAMUS newsletter.

via CDM

WiiJing is the use of Nintentdo’s Wiimote to control DJ software. This is a demonstration of Wiijing, presented by DJ ! for the website www.djwiij.com.

This is a proof of concept demonstration video of Wiij Scratching with a Nintendo Wiimote and using Traktor DJ Software.

A closer look at DJ Wiij’s approach to WiiJing.

Wiimote Synthesizer

Description:

Here’s a quick version of how this works:

You do not need a Wii console to do this. I do not actually own a Wii console, I just went out and bought the controller as soon as I heard it is bluetooth enabled. You will however need a bluetooth adapter. (A lot of laptops have one already)

First get BlueSoleil (www.bluesoleil.com) to pair your computer with the wiimote over bluetooth.Get GlovePIE (http://carl.kenner.googlepages.com/glovepie). It recognizes the wiimote and you can turn the sensor data into midi output. There are some sample scripts on there, but you’ll really want to write your own script. The program has excellent documentation, and with the sample scripts provided it is relatively easy to write your own script for whatever you are doing.

You will need to install the Maple Virtual MIDI ports (http://www.hardnote.com/maple.htm). This allows you to send MIDI data between programs on your computer. One program uses port 1 as an output, and another listens on that port. At this point, you can use the Wiimote to send midi data to any program you want. I used Reaktor.

In my video, I have two tilt axes controlling the frequency cutoff on two low-pass filters. The arrow keys control the pitch of the melody, and the rest of the buttons choose from preset chords. The A and B buttons turn on and off the two voices.You might also notice that the LEDs on the Wiimote change. They change depending on the chord that is selected. You are able to use GlovePIE to also send MIDI data back to the Wiimote.Quick note to mac users:You can do this using Max/MSP. There is an object for Max written to connect to the Wiimote. See the instructions here: http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~aka/max/#aka_wiiremote

via sapphire327