Category: DXARTS – Mechainstrument

Mechainstrument study and docs

Here is the video of a short study done with the mechainstrument. It’s an early stage of both the system, as well as the piece itself. Code for the SuperCollider, as well as trained networks’ parameters are attached below (you may want to change the extension to .scd after downloading): networks

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Tape music and neural network

Let’s narrow down the goals for this project: I want to create an intuitive interface to control – that is perform – pieces which are pre-composed, very much as “tape music” is. The idea is for the performer to make gestures with hands while “practicing” with the piece. In this process system is supposed to …

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Wekinator and machine learning

I was very excited when I heard about Wekinator project. It looked like a very developed  implementation of the functionality I wanted. I tried to hook it up to SuperCollider and Kinect. Short note on Kinect: I’m using OSCeleton, which depends on OpenNI / NITE (info on installation is on the OSCeleton website). It tracks …

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Input interface – video tracking approach

One of the things that needs to be decided is the technology used for input – recognizing movement of the performer. There is number of project that I was considering as a starting point: Wekinator – integrated environment of control interface, intelligent mapping, gesture recognition and simple synthesis. It sounds like a ready-to-use project, however …

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The violin, the theremin and the others

Looking at the history of couple musical instruments turned out to be very inspiring for my small research. After Jeremy Montagu: Musical instruments evolve over time. They change to be louder, easier or more comfortable to play. And music written for every instrument reflects this instrument’s capabilities at certain point in time. Music in a …

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Time plan

Rough time plan for realisation of Mechainstrument: Week 1 (03/28) – overview Week 2 (04/04) – research/try/decide on hand position reading method (proximity sensors, video tracking, magnetic field…?) Week 3 (04/11) – research/try/decide on mechanical instrument part (types of robotic instruments created, drums, strings etc.) Week 4 (04/18) – start fabrication… Week 5 (04/25) – …

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Mechainstrument – intro

This category is devoted to documenting my final project for Mechatronic Art class at DXARTS. I want to create a hybrid electro-acoustic (-mechanical) instrument, controlled in a non-contact way with hands. I want it to generate sounds with various levels of musical complexity – from single events to large scale gestures, maintaining realtime control over …

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