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MIT Students' Audiopad Mixes Electronic Music
nicodemus05 writes "Grad students at MIT's Media Lab have come up with an innovative control device called the Audiopad to run their digital music studio. The Audiopad, '...is a composition and performance instrument for electronic music which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface and converts their motion into music.' It's practical, but more importantly it looks really, really cool."
I've actually seen this device in action and I was amazed. I think the way it interacts with the user/musician is something a lot of people are looking for. Let's hope some manufacturers of musical devices take note of this project and incorporate some of it's ideas in products that can be made available for a broader range of people.
I haven't had time to see the site in action, probably due to the slashdot effect.
From the description, other than using a tabletop as its active surface, i'm wondering how different it is to Korg's Kaosspad in functionality.
http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=KP2
This could probably be made with more affordable hardware, like a TFT touch screen, or even a regular monitor and an XY pad. It would take a slight adjustment of the original constuction, interface-wise. But the main idea would still be applicable.
The really low budget version of this would be a software-only product controlled by mouse. It would probably sell, even though some functionality would probably be lost.
...um...like...a sig...
This is just another one of those MIT projects that makes it to slashdot. Just as you seem to have chain effect in 'peer review' processes, it's not because it is spectacular that it gets published, but mainly because it is from place X or Y.
Loads of universities create student projects but they basically give it the attention it deserves: they are student projects; practical definately, revolutionary, not by far. Their main purpose is to give students a direct experience with real life toy projects. Real life, because in those projects, several aspects from real systems are included. Toy because students do not have the time to really do the advanced design and testing a profesional project requires.
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
Max/MSP and Pure Data have been doing stuff like this for years. The only thing "unique" here is the fact that they aren't using a mouse, and that's just a bunch of standard Max/MSP and PD externals. Bleh.
sig.
All those "this changes music" "all instruments are obsolete" etc posts...
There is NO synthesis in the video... it's all from prerecorded loops, that they probably didn't even make themselves.
IE. Pure gimmick!
There's value in tradition.
Oh come on, the interface is everything to an instrument. Instruments vary in only two ways, firstly the sound they produce, and secondly the way they have to be manipulated to produce those sounds.
This instrument may be similar to the device you reference, however its novel and easy to manipulate interface will allow completely new sounds to be woven into compositions. I'd wager that an experienced artist could make music with this device that he couldn't do with any other instrument - but I'd need to read more about it first.
So to argue more directly with your point: The user interface would be the whole point if it actually helped the user achieve something in a more efficient fashion... but it doesn't do anything that doesn't already exist. The interface is the whole point and it does help the user either make music more efficiently, or to make completely new types of composition. I'd say both, but I expect you'd have to ask someone who's made music with it.
this in itself might not be commercially viable, but it makes an interesting case study in applications of their Sensetable, which this is based on. They've demonstrated the use of this tool in the demonstration of molecular interactions, as well as tracking business methods. it's seriously interesting HCI stuff.
mah na mah na.