Week 17:application and implications


This week's agenda for Fab academy was :

  • To understand and decide the detailed breif of our final project

  • Material and cost estimation

  • process and steps to finish the final project

  • MyDi

    MIDI controller to spin off music and generate visuals


    What is a MIDI ?

    A Musical Instrument Digital Interface.This is the program/device/software which helps an electronic instrument or digital music tool communicate with each other.The midi has inouts to turn the note on or off, velocity - which adds up to the volume basically and pitchwhere you can control factors to change the pitch.Here in the table below you can see the usual protocal of linking a note to the digital number the software understands as a musical note while coding and/or programming in order to generate music/sounds



    Project concept

    Project concept

    before I get into the details of materials needed and the costs, process and production, I would like to give you a little snippet of what I want to achieve in the end. But this video only demonstrates the output and not the electronics and fabrication and installation part of my assignment.





    So, now that we hav an idea od what the output would look like, I work backwords to chieve the output in order to make it an installation.

    What are the parts of the installation? an overview and breakdown

    A MIDI board that communicates with a software called Ableton which is a music production software. A virtual MIDI port on the computer will communicate this sounds/music from Ableton as an input onto Processing which acts as an interface inorder to generate visuals

    Who has done it before hand ?

    There are a lot of people who have done what I want to achieve in parts. So here as per the breakdown, I list projects and references I am going to use.

    The MIDI device is basically going to be an arduino flashed with an AVR to behave as a MIDI.And this MIDI then gets called a HIDUINO.Here is a project reference in order to do that. MIDI YOUR ARDUINO

    Now, this MIDI board is going to be attached to controllers . it could be buttons/pads/knobs/ynaptic touch pads.Here I add 2 link of how to make them. One is to make a LED push button pad - Adafruit Trellis and the other one is to make it with arcade buttons - Arcade button MIDI on Instructables. Here are videos of how each would work.







    This MIDI then intercats with Ableton It needs to be mapped to musics/instruments/chords on Ableton.*NO SURPRISES FOR GUESSING HOW DIFFICULLT THIS WILL BE FOR AN ARCHITECT GRAPPLING WITH DJ INSTRUMENTS FOR THE FIRST TIME*



    Project concept

    Ableton then interacts with processing via a virtual MIDI port. For a Mac user , the virtual MIDI port already exits but for a Windows user, there are many softwares out there in order to communicate with a virtual MIDI , and after some research, I realised many prer to use the Loop MIDI. here is where the Output of sound/music from ableton get converted to an Input to processing.

    Then we integrate the sketch on processing to generate visuals



    Project concept

    And here is a wood and fabric composite bracelet made at Fab Textiles

    What materials and components will be needed?

    Satsha kit

    conductive sewable buttons

    insulated copper wire

    USB wires and ports to connect to computers

    Projector

    3mm or 4mm thickness wood board for MIDI pad

    fabric material to make the MIDI pad flexible

    Glue to make the fabric composite with wood

    Where will they come from?

    Satsha kit - will be milled in the lab

    conductive sewable buttons - general departmental stores

    insulated copper wire - Diotronics store

    USB wires and ports to connect to computers- will use the ones in the lab for prototype

    Projector - will use the one n the lab for the prototype

    3mm or 4mm thickness wood board for MIDI pad - eithe some scrap from the fab Lab or will buy it from Madera Estadillas

    fabric material to make the MIDI pad flexible - Fabric stores / Servei Estacion

    Glue to make the fabric composite with wood - Servei Estacion

    What parts will be fabricated ?

    satsha kit Electronics fabricated at the lab

    Midi pad with conductive buttons Cast from a lasered wooden board and fabric

    The music and graphics will be Interfaced with the help of ableton and processing

    conductive button as input devices stitched and fabricated as a circuit

    What softwares and process will be used ?

    Eagle

    Rhino

    Processing

    Ableton

    Milling of PCBS

    Laser cutting

    composites

    How much does it cost ?

    Conductive buttons ~ 2 euros for a set of 8 buttons

    insulated copper wire ~ 25 euros for a 15 meter roll

    3mm or 4 mm wood ~ 10 euros for 1000 mm by 500 mm peice

    Fabric to make composite ~ 10 euros

    a small portiion of wood glue ~ 5 euros

    What tasks need to be completed

    Testing the fabric composite as MIDI pad and it's flexibility.

    Satsha kit as MIDI controller, as I have tested it for now with a commercial board.

    What questions need to be answered

    how will the inulated copper wire be connected to the conductive button inputs and the microcontroler without making it messy.

    should the project be divided in 2 parts one as interfacing only with ableton and next stage as also interfacing with visual softwares

    How much flexibility can the MIDI pad have

    What is the schedule

    The first priority, is to make the satsha kit functioning completely in the coming week.

    The next week will be for fabricationg the MIDI pad by making the flexible composite.

    And the final week will be to make the final video and presentation.

    How will it be evaluated

    The concept of a Soft MIDI device has never been undertaken in this manner. It usually is with conductive paint at max, hence one major point of this project woud be the conception itself. The integration of many kinds of techniques from Fab Academy and Fabricademy Bootcamp into one seemless product in a project is another takeaway of this project.