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MIT Students' Audiopad Mixes Electronic Music

Posted by timothy on from the cool-videos dept.

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."

9 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Sure by minghe · · Score: 4, Funny

    But can I play Chopsticks on it?

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    ...um...like...a sig...
  2. I've seen it live.... by lennart78 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I've seen it live.... by lennart78 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Excuse me for being software-minded, but wouldn't it be possible to use some of the control-functions and build a MIDI-controller to use with softsynths, or even modular software such as Reaktor?
      I think it would offer some interesting possibilities.

    2. Re:I've seen it live.... by torpor · · Score: 4, Interesting


      Yes, of course it would be possible, but I don't work for a software synthesizer manufacturer, I work for a hardware synthesizer manufacturer.

      We actually make money (soft synth guys don't, pity for them). This means it is more seductive for someone to require us to license something like this technology.

      We'd rather just come up with it ourselves.

      Either way though, the lesson to be learnt from MIT is that there is a loooot of room for improvement in the control surface side of things.

      (We know that already, though.)

      --
      ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  3. Sounds great by arvindn · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but since I can't access the page, I'll just say that if they can make a similar device to convert the death throes of a webserver into digital music, we could have some real fun during slashdottings :)

  4. Done before? by m1kesm1th · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  5. sigh. by den_erpel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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."
  6. Theremin by zoeblade · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you want to wave your arms around to make music, you still can't beet a Theremin.

  7. nice by tade · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This reminds me of this. It is called Mixed Reality Pong.

    Mixed Reality Pong is a mixed reality version of the classic "Pong" game. The aim of the game is to score goals by hitting a virtual ball over the other end of the game area protected by the opponent player. The game counts the goals the players have scored, and they can agree to play either for a limited amount of time, or until either of them has scored a certain amount of goals.
    The players can play the game with their hands or other real-world objects. The game physics simulate the behaviour of a real ball, except that the virtual ball doesn't slow down at all.