Arduino has found its way into yet another musical device. I came across the ‘UFO’ while in Berlin. It’s a MIDI controller that lets you compose music or control synthesizers by waving your hands about.
Its creator, a Finnish former game developer named Tommi Koskinen, built it for use in performances with his band Phantom. After co-founding a company called Audiodraft and building games for several years for companies like Digital Chocolate and GameHouse, Koskinen said he felt a desire to build something more tangible. He was inspired by a performance he saw at a Helsinki art festival a year ago.
“There was this one artist that was using sonic sensors to control visuals and some tonalities,” Koskinen said. “There where I got this idea. I really wanted to have a device like that, where I could use my hands to control my own music and have it in a standalone box that could connect to any laptop or synthesizer.”
After some design courses at a university, he started prototyping a device.
To be clear, this isn’t a MIDI theremin (or one of those instruments that was popular in 50s sci-fi films), since the technology is different. Theremins use radio frequency oscillators while the UFO is ultrasonic. It emits sounds that aren’t detectable by the human ear and then senses echoes to measure distance. Based on the distance of your hands from the device, the UFO can control the pitch of a sound or push a track through a low-pass filter or add other effects to varying degrees.
It converts the distance of your hands from the device into MIDI data that can be fed into audio sequencing software like Ableton Live.
You can also use it to compose music. There’s a mode that he built that lets the UFO send MIDI notes and lets you control it like a virtual air keyboard. Each sensor can emit a different note (like on a pentatonic scale for example), and when you move your hand from left to right, it can be like doing a glissando on a piano. There’s a video demo below of that mode.
Koskinen just has one device right now, but he says he’d consider open-sourcing parts of the design (with the exception of the laser-cut casing).
Question by Will: Can you get a 720p picture through av cables? I’ve been seing these things on ebay and amazon called itheater virtual video glasses and they say that it supports 720p, so does that mean I will get an HD picture because I thought that was only possible through HDMI but these use av cables.
Best answer:
Answer by David EYou get it through HDMI and Component cables. Component are those red/green/blue ones with red/white for left right audio.
Add your own answer in the comments!
Related Posts:Question by Tex: How does a computer control a specific circuit in the system through prgramming? Ok, so, I understand that to program something in windows, you baiscally just call on Microsofts files and bam it works. However, if I have a simple device, say a robotics circuit board and want to designate a specific circuit on the board to do something, how do i do that?
Best answer:
Answer by Mr.Total Recallu must add a integuared circuit
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Nintendo is notorious for releasing awesome limited edition hardware abroad, but here in the US of A, we tend to get the short end of the joystick. Case in point, the house that Mario Miyamoto built is releasing a Charizard-themed 3DS XL on December 15th in Japan for ¥18,900 ($ 237). Available exclusively at Pokémon Center stores, aspiring buyers will need to complete an order form and win (yes, win) a drawing for a chance to purchase one of these beautiful monsters. Winners will have from December 15th through January 14th to claim and purchase their prize. As for you unlucky entrants, you’ll have the opportunity to indulge in one of America’s favorite pastimes — buying Nintendo collectibles online at an extremely high markup.
Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Nintendo
Charizard 3DS XL burns through Japan’s Pokémon Centers in December, snag one if you’re lucky originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Oct 2012 03:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The space shuttle Endeavour finally bid adieu to its fans in Southern California last weekend, not in the air, but on city streets. The L.A. Times captured this remarkable feat in a time-lapse video, and it’s quite a sight to see the orbiter sailing past suburban houses and fast food drive-thrus. Along its 12-mile crosstown trip from LAX to the California Science Center in Exposition Park, the shuttle atop a special transporter had to maneuver past trees, utility poles and of course hundreds of enthralled residents. This came weeks after it made its farewell tour over the California coast perched on a Boeing 747. Take a peek at the Endeavour’s final fascinating journey at the source.
Filed under: Transportation
Visualized: Space shuttle Endeavour goes on a crosstown journey through LA streets originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 03:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This is a video of Barbican’s Rain Room. It’s a room full of simulated rain that you can walk through and not get wet. Sorcery? Sadly, no. It uses 3-D cameras to track your movement and open a small pocket of dryness around you as you walk through it. Of course, it would be just my luck that the cameras would malfunction when I visited and I’d wind up soaked. It’s cool though, I like the rain. Unless it’s raining men. “Then you love it.” Then I loooove it.
Now, we don’t know for sure what the PM23100 that just made its way through the FCC is, but we’d put pretty good odds on it being Verizon’s Windows Phone 8X. Only a couple of hours after what appears to be the AT&T-bound 8X was given the thumbs up by regulators, yet another HTC Windows Phone appeared, with an incredibly similar model number, CDMA radios and compatibility with Big Red’s 700MHz LTE. Knowing that it’s an HTC Windows Phone and that it packs NFC really doesn’t leave too many possibilities. The one pleasant surprise, it’s also compatible with GSM frequencies 850 and 1900,, so you’ll be able to roam the globe with just the swap of a SIM. Hit up the source to see the filling for yourself.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC, Verizon
Verizon Windows Phone 8X may have passed through the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Microsoft has revealed its Xbox Music service pricing through the Windows 8 Music app, at the same time as pushing out a beta Xbox dashboard update that gives testers a chance to try out the on-console interface. The service, which has yet to be fully unveiled, will offer unlimited streaming for £8.99 per month — the same price as a British Zune Pass — or £89.90 per year. We expect US pricing to mirror the UK’s in matching the current Zune Pass pricing. To use the service on Xbox, you’ll need to have an Xbox Live Gold subscription. A forum post on NeoGAF has also revealed that Xbox Music will offer a free advert-supported service similar to Spotify, along with a scan-and-match locker service — something we’ve independently…
Many who’ve been following Microsoft’s tablet efforts for years will have a soft spot for the Courier, a creative-focused device axed because it didn’t fit the Windows puzzle. However, it looks like you just can’t keep a clever idea down. Developers at Microsoft have revived the dream through Project Austin, a Windows 8 app based around the visual concept of a notebook. Pen aficionados can choose different paper types and paste in photos, but they’re deliberately kept away from typing, searching and other elements that would complicate the idea. It should sound familiar: it’s a rough (if possibly unintentional) Windows doppelganger to FiftyThree’s Paper for iPad, which itself was designed by some of the former Courier team. A company spokesperson won’t say if or when Project Austin will be available in a complete form for the public, although there’s not much point until Windows 8 arrives on October 26th. Thankfully, programmers keen to see what Courier might have been — if just in bits and pieces — can already download the source code for themselves.
Filed under: Tablets, Software
Microsoft resurrects Courier through Project Austin app for Windows 8, sparks nostalgia (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Sep 2012 06:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If Panasonic didn’t have attention from movie producers before, it just might as of this week. Joining the quickly developing tradition of camera makers producing elaborate short movies as technology demos, the company has let cinematographer Philip Bloom wield (and tease) a “brand new G camera” to record Genesis, a fast-paced mini-drama showing a man’s race to meet his love before it’s too late. While Bloom can’t talk much about the hardware in question until the 17th, he’s allowed to confirm that the upcoming Micro Four Thirds body relies on a “superb” 72Mbps All-I codec for video — letting it capture a sprint through the streets without the compression artifacts of the AVCHD format used by most mirrorless cameras. Panasonic’s upcoming shooter also touts “much improved” results in the dark, Bloom says. It all sounds very tempting, especially if it turns out that Panasonic’s inadvertent leaks are for the same camera we see in action here. The full movie is available after the break, and Bloom has the behind-the-scenes details at the source link.
Filed under: Cameras
Future Panasonic G camera’s 72Mbps movie-making prowess teased through speedy drama (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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