This summer was the 30th Anniversary of Ghostbusters, and the movie was re-released in theatres for a limited 1-week run. I took my son Andreas (age 8) to it, and he loved it! Mind you, he had heard of Ghostbusters plenty of times before from me, and had even played the games (PC and Commodore 64 versions) a little bit. But seeing the movie clinched it: He wanted to be a Ghostbuster for Halloween this year! That’s music to a geek dad’s ears, so we spent a weekend putting together the ultimate Ghostbusters costume – on a limited budget. Half the fun was scrounging through the amazing surplus and electronics stores around Toronto like Active Surplus, Creatron, and Sayal Electronics, looking for doodads and gizmos to incorporate into the costume. Continue Reading
If you’re a total cyberpunk nerd this should immediately ring a bell:
I could crash your whole (beat) from here man!
Leif Bloomquist AKA Schema Factor performed at Burning Chrome using a Leap Motion controller for his hardware and a unique visualization engine.
The result was mindblowing:
Leif crits with Digital Music Blast spell
Another Candid from the Schema Factor performance
Devil’s Cellar decor
Saucy Miso & Schema Factor soundchecking
Leif the Technomancer!
I’ve been pestering Seth Hardy of Propane and Electrons and Site 3 Fire Arts to make a MIDI version of his solid-state relay flame effects controller board. This will allow you to create flame effects (or lighting effects or what have you) under MIDI control so you can synchronize the outputs to music!
The prototype boards are in and he put one together for me (awesome). We got together earlier this week to test them out. A couple of swapped pins were found, a quick trace cut and jumper and we are ready to go!
Support Seth’s Open Source design efforts here on Patreon! The design files can be found here.
My code for testing the board is here on GitHub (warning, doesn’t include any safety features yet).
Next steps are to refine the code a bit more to add some timeouts and arming sequences, and then hopefully live tests with fire!
(Read More for pics)
Screenshot
I got a lot done on my new network game “Vortex 2” as presented at ECCC 2013 during the long winter, and I’d like to unveil it as a playable work-in-progress to get help with testing and feedback.
You can’t do much in the game yet. Enemy ships will fly around and chase you and each other, you can shoot at them and they will shoot back, but nothing will happen. But it’s still pretty fun, especially with friends!
I’ve been captivated by the possibilities of the LEAP Motion as an input device ever since it was announced. It’s still finding its niche, but I feel an area of huge potential is for interactive electronic music.
Photo Credit: Ars Technica
So, how to turn your gestures into MIDI data with the LEAP? I’m especially interested in using it with my DAW of choice, FL Studio in Windows. Guess what, there’s an app for that (actually several).
The main ingredients for the configuration I went with are as follows:
- A LEAP Motion controller – you can get them at Best Buy or Future Shop! It’s $79.99 US.
- (For Windows) The “loopMIDI” virtual MIDI loopback cable application.
- The GECO App by UWYN, available from LEAP’s Airspace store (part of the LEAP install). It’s $9.99 US.
Read on for details.
Multiple Kernels #1. The extra leads are for the DualSID.
A couple of years ago I put together my “Ultimate Commodore 64” with multiple kernels, dual SID chips for stereo sound, reset button, USB, Ethernet, a 16GB flash drive, 4 Joystick Ports, and painted blue! You can get more details from my presentation at World of Commodore 2011. However, I accidentally killed the motherboard recently when messing around with my RN-XV Wifi project (oops). So, a swap was in order.
I bought a fully socketed 64C motherboard from eBay and swapped it in with the appropriate chips, then re-applied all the mods I had made. One thing I’ve done differently this time around is to use clip leads instead of soldering to my shiny “new” motherboard. I’ve documented the internals in pictures, it turned out pretty cool and is hopefully useful for documenting the top-side connection locations.
(Read More for pics)
I’ve been working with the SoMo by SonicWear, a cool little device that generates sound through movement, and I had some input into its design. SonicWear is a Toronto-based startup, and the project itself originated with Loretta Faveri at OCAD University’s Social Body Lab.
Photo Credit: Asma Khanani Caporaletti
The main target platform for SoMo is Max/MSP on a Mac, but I was interested in using SoMo in other platforms, notably FL Studio in Windows. So I set out to adapt SoMo into a more general-purpose MIDI controller that could be used with any music software, using some freely available tools.
The main ingredients are:
- My custom code for the SoMo (Arduino compatible) – this is for V4.0 of the device, and the accompanying XBee profile.
- The amusingly named “Hairless MIDI Bridge“.
- (For Windows) The “loopMIDI” virtual MIDI loopback cable application.
Read on for details.
When working on Organic Evolution, I ran into the issue of not being able to send custom MIDI messages to the pipe organ controller for controlling the stops and other effects – FL Studio and other DAWs hide the protocol details from you quite effectively. Sending custom messages would also be handy for other custom or non-standard MIDI hardware.
I hunted high and low for a VST pugin to allow me to do this, and couldn’t find one. So, I decided to write my own.
Version 2 adds support for CC-based mappings, a redesigned GUI, and quite a few fixes. This is Release Candidate 2, which fixes all the issues found in RC1.
Download it at http://www.schemafactor.com/midimapperx/ and give it a try!
At ECCC 2013, I presented some ideas for a “massively” multiplayer networked Commodore 64 game, and several people have joined the project to help out. Thanks to the appropriately named Polar Vortex (which I still think would make an awesome name for a metal band, and no connection to the game), we got a fair bit done on it over the holidays.
Here’s a teaser image from the real-time map:
It’s actually playable now, please head over to the Google Group if you want to try it out!
Jamming Signal 