STEIM’s junXion Lets Mac Users Turn Anything Into A Musical Instrument

Dutch music center STEIM (the studio for electro-instrumental music) has released a series of video tuturials for junXion

junXion is a Mac OSX application that can translate signals from joysticks, mice, touchscreens, MIDI, OSC, Audio, Arduino and Video devices – using conditional processing and remapping – into MIDI or OSC events. The resulting MIDI or OSC data is then available to any audio or music software that runs on that Mac or can be sent to external MIDI/OSC devices.

junXion Features:

  • recognition and usage of 8 types of Input Sensors
    • Human Interface Events, such as joystick X-axis, mouse scroll wheel, touch screen Y-axis
    • MIDI Events, such as MIDI note events from Port 1, Mod. Wheel events from Port 2
    • Timer Events, internal data generating processes, up to 100 Timers can be used
    • OSC (Open Sound Control) Events via network
    • WiiRemote Events, the popular Wii controllers support (on bluetooth machines)
    • Audio Events, as level and pitch tracking sensors
    • Arduino Inputs, simply reading the sensors connected to an Arduino board and using junXion to process these
    • Video Inputs, use live video image to extract a ‘Video Object’ out of movement, color recognition, etc.
  • being resolution independent, junXion v5 can handle any input data up to 16-bit resolution
  • one Input Sensor such as ‘joystick X-axis’ can be connected to multiple Actions, thus generating multiple MIDI/OSC events
  • multiple Input Sensors can be connected to one Action, so for example several switches of your joystick can trigger the same Action
  • (auto) scaling of the incoming data
  • straight mapping from the incoming data into one of the available MIDI/OSC events
  • remapping of the computer keyboard and mouse to MIDI/OSC events
  • creation of analog style sequencers using junXion’s Timers
  • MIDI output port or OSC network port selectable per Action
  • the possibility to simultaneously connect up to 15 USB input devices and route them to separate or common MIDI channels/ports (for example: you can for instance ‘play’ Ableton Live with two joysticks and the computer keyboard)
  • external MIDI input data can be merged with junXion’s MIDI data or reprocessed and even turned into OSC messages
  • save/recall user defined configurations
  • editable table based response curves for the translation of gestures into MIDI controller data
  • an extended set of data conditioners and conditional data routing (for example: passing a threshold by moving a joystick will first trigger a note and than send its further movement data as MIDI controller data)
  • ‘Timers’ for timed data streams triggered and ‘steered’ by external input devices (for example: use for simple sequencing)
  • ‘Audio Events’ as sensors, for each audio input junXion can extract the Level and Pitch to be used as input data.
  • ‘Video Events’ as sensors, for each in junXion’s video object editor definable Object you get six different input sensors, such as x and y position.

junXion is available to download; licenses are €75.

http://vimeo.com/40155940

Tutorial #2 about Steim’s data processing and mapping software junXion, takes a look a using a joystick as a controller with junXion. The tutorial is presented by Andreas Otto, a.k.a. Springintgut.

Next, Otto takes a look at using timers in junXion.

This video demonstrates how to use a WiiMote as a musical instrument, with junXion.

The last two videos, above and below, look at using video tracking for music control.

If you’ve tried junXion, let us know how you’ve used it!

4 thoughts on “STEIM’s junXion Lets Mac Users Turn Anything Into A Musical Instrument

  1. Cool! I’ve been wondering how I could use the trackpad on my MBP as a controller, I never even thought of using the camera as well. This is exciting.

  2. Junxion is a great program, but has quite a steap learning curve for the advanced features, so the tutorials are very welcome.

  3. BTW: Junxion Version 5 has been just released and is free for registered users. You can download it at the Steim site. There is also a light (midi only ) version available for people, not needing the whole featureset.

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