Quicktime, Max / MSP, Midi

The next thing i wanted to experiment on Max was how to control Quicktime Movies using the midi input. Because of my previous experiments with Midi controlled visuals controlling a quick time movie wasn’t as hard to do. I started of by using the Midi Keyboard to in put a signal to Max/MSP and using the previous “notein” object i use in the previous experiment i was able to pick out separate signals that each key gives off. This in turn allowed me to pick each key to trigger a Movie to start. I did this using an object called “select” and connected it to the note number. Now whenever i played a note it would send that signal to the “select” object and that would output the right signal as a “bang” to the correct Movie File.

I had a few problems connected the Movies to an externally displayed window because of the output signals of the “lcd” screen i was using. In the end i decided to bypass the “lcd” screen altogether and just go directly to the external display window.

Controlling Max / MSP with Midi

For the next few tests i am trying to find a way to control my visuals using a Midi input. I am using Midi because my electronic drum kit has a midi output and i want to use the pads from the drum kit to control visuals.
This was not as easy as i thought it would be, it took me a long time going through tutorials and websites trying to find a way to do this. In the end after talking to Liam we managed to find a tutorial that allowed us to create visuals using the midi input.

The patcher we created allowed us to attach a Midi devise (in this case a keyboard) and when we hit a key it would produce a random shape and a random colour on our display. I was really happy with this result Because it was one step closer to make each key or pad on my midi device generate a separate visual.

Max / MSP Test 2

The next Patcher i produced on Max allowed me to control the movement of visuals using the beat from a sound track. The way i set it up made the program take an average beat from the sound track and then input that information in to a scaling ‘Object’ this then changed the scale of the film as it played in time with the music.
I outputted this information to a ‘jit.window’. This is the small window on the left of the print screen, doing this enabled me to view the video and also enable it to go full screen for a projection.

Max / MSP

i decided to use Max/MSP to control the visuals for our performance piece. I chose Max because i had read up on software to control Visuals using midi and max was the one that seemed to have the most hype.

I started out by running tutorials to help me lear the software. I managed to find some really good tutorials on YouTube called Baz Tutorials. Each separate tutorial ran on to the other slowly building up techniques and knowledge of the software. Eventually i was able to create some basic Patchers. Below is a screen shot of my first attempt at Max/ MSP.

This Patcher enabled the user to create music via visuals. At the top of the image is a grid called the ‘MatrixCtrl’ this enabled me to input points on the grid using my mouse, this would generate different sound depending on the position on the grid. It also allowed me to input several different points at the same time mixing all the sounds generated together.
I could also change the frequency and pitch of the sounds generated using the number boxes above each “saw” and “cycle”

Other Visual styles

Drawings

These are some drawing i have done to show how i think the visuals should look. I am also going to make the visuals on Photoshop so we can get a full picture of how they are going to look.

The Visuals

DRUM VISUALS

GUITAR VISUALS

FULL VISUALS

Generating Music

I found this website below that generates music by the audience drawing squares on the grid. I found this quite interesting because this is similar to what adam and myself are doing.

http://www.glitchscape.com/

Guitar and Drum Effects Using Sensors

http://infusionsystems.com/catalog/info_pages.php/pages_id/151

 

Above are pictures of a guy who has created a Hybrid Guitar, using sensors he has managed to bend the output of the guitar.

 

This is the Hardware needed to connect my electronic drum kit to a computer using midi.

Generative Music

After talking to Phil about some of our ideas we ca,e up with the idea of using an electric drum kit and an electric guitar to generate and trigger some visuals projected behind the band.

Phil suggested that we should come up with an style of visuals, i immediately thought of the artist Piet Mondrian. He Uses a lot of block colours and black lines to create a mood in a painting.

We want to use the grid of Mondrian’s painting as a base for our visuals, using the guitar and drum kit to create shapes and make colours appear inside the individual grid markings.