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Fun things to do late at night - making music with the Kinect
  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    I'm no MIDI expert, but I had to try this. It uses the Kinect to send data to a program that recognises different bits of your body, then turns that in to MIDI data which can activate sounds.

    This is just a basic go - but you can get it to recognise each hand independently, and in the x, y, and z (distance) axis. Here I'm triggering chords in two instruments (I click around them to demonstrate) then stand back and control volume with the height of my hands and which chords are triggered by the side-to-side movement of each. A lot of fun! Maybe I can get it to control faders so I can exercise while mixing down?

    EDIT: Looking at this morning, I think I've invented Mime!!

  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • matt_gh2matt_gh2

    @Mark_the_Harp Very cool.

  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    Hi @matt_gh2, thanks! I could see it might have its uses controlling various midi-driven interfaces, for example lighting or motorised devices. The positions are totally repeatable, so it's pretty precision stuff. I'm less sure about its use in music, because if you really need to play something, you'd just play it rather than waving your hands around.

    I hope people here might think of interesting uses for this. Http://www.kinectar.org has links to all the software required if anyone wants a go

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I think it is much more suitable

  • stoneystoney

    Minority Report vs Leap Motion :)

  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    Hey both, that's fun. I'd seen the Leap Motion thing a while ago and forgotten about it. Looks like it might actually be possible to buy one day soon - I was interested in the Kinect mainly because some people have one (like me) and also because it's interesting to see what you can get out of a device that's normally used for something else.

    Also I'm starting to see more possibility with these devices as I learn my way around how to interface them with various other bits of software - and I'm starting to do more sophisticated things than my earlier video above. It's fun to experiment, and of course the Kinect actually exists, which is a plus on the Leap Motion!

    The developers also have a complete skeletal tracking system which spits out OSC data, and that could be the basis for a cheap (free!) full-body 3D motion capture system. This skeletal tracking system is available for free download at http://ethnotekh.com/project/ethno-tracker/ if anyone wants to experiment - it's not something I know anything about but I can see it might be just what someone else on here is looking for.

    Also a new release ot the Kinectar midi software + tracker is coming out tomorrow, specifically for tracking and converting to Midi.

    Where the Leap Motion scores over the Kinect is in its accuracy and I can see the Leap Motion might be a superb music control interface because of its fine control.

  • dtrdtr

    I've been doing some of that kinect wizardry as well ;) http://dietervandoren.net/index.php?/project/integration04/

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