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Step 13Turning your Controller into an Instrument
Now you should have a finished Ondestrak controller. Congratulations.
Turning your controller into an instrument is where the programming comes in. I won't go into too much detail about that here other than to give a brief explanation of what I programmed each function to do. I found MaxMSP to be a fairly-intuitive environment to learn, so I recommend using it.
In the end, the controller will give six variables. Two for each joystick and one for each spool. I programmed the primary spool to controller the instrument's volume. When the controller is released and the board is open the volume is at zero. When it is fully depressed it is at full volume.
The secondary spool controls pitch. I had it programmed to create a simple sine wave. The farther to the left the ring is, the lower the pitch and the farther to the right it is, the higher the pitch gets. I had mine programmed to have about an octave-and-a-half range. I didn't have the time to make the ribbon controller follow a linear pitch progression, like on a keyboard. Instead it grew exponentially since its physical position was directly correlated to a change in hertz. This would be an easy fix to anyone a bit more savvy with musical programming. Also, I found it helpful to have a visual pitch reference on the controller. As you can see in the pictures, I have a few pitches labeled on a piece of paper which I taped along the path of the ribbon.
As for the two joysticks, my idea was have these drive through a sort of of timbre space. I matched the X and Y coordinates from each joystick and averaged them so that the pair of controllers produced two variables, one for lifting the ring off of the frame and another for pushing and pulling it along the frame. As a short term fix I had these controls set to alter variables in frequency modulation patch which gave the affect of changing the instruments timbre, independent of the pitch control.
I've posted three videos here. The first shows the working and manipulation of the instrument from up-close. The second one is a demonstration of the instrument without the manipulation of the joysticks. The final video is another demonstration but with my attempts at timbre manipulation.
I hope that you've enjoyed this. It was a lot of fun to make, and even if you don't decide to follow my plans I hope that it's given you some ideas for cheap and easy ways to enter into the world of DIY music. Thanks!
Up-Close Manipulation (No Instrument Sound):
Without Timbre Filters (Straight Sine Wave):
With Rough Timbre Filters (Sine Wave with Frequency Modulation):
Turning your controller into an instrument is where the programming comes in. I won't go into too much detail about that here other than to give a brief explanation of what I programmed each function to do. I found MaxMSP to be a fairly-intuitive environment to learn, so I recommend using it.
In the end, the controller will give six variables. Two for each joystick and one for each spool. I programmed the primary spool to controller the instrument's volume. When the controller is released and the board is open the volume is at zero. When it is fully depressed it is at full volume.
The secondary spool controls pitch. I had it programmed to create a simple sine wave. The farther to the left the ring is, the lower the pitch and the farther to the right it is, the higher the pitch gets. I had mine programmed to have about an octave-and-a-half range. I didn't have the time to make the ribbon controller follow a linear pitch progression, like on a keyboard. Instead it grew exponentially since its physical position was directly correlated to a change in hertz. This would be an easy fix to anyone a bit more savvy with musical programming. Also, I found it helpful to have a visual pitch reference on the controller. As you can see in the pictures, I have a few pitches labeled on a piece of paper which I taped along the path of the ribbon.
As for the two joysticks, my idea was have these drive through a sort of of timbre space. I matched the X and Y coordinates from each joystick and averaged them so that the pair of controllers produced two variables, one for lifting the ring off of the frame and another for pushing and pulling it along the frame. As a short term fix I had these controls set to alter variables in frequency modulation patch which gave the affect of changing the instruments timbre, independent of the pitch control.
I've posted three videos here. The first shows the working and manipulation of the instrument from up-close. The second one is a demonstration of the instrument without the manipulation of the joysticks. The final video is another demonstration but with my attempts at timbre manipulation.
I hope that you've enjoyed this. It was a lot of fun to make, and even if you don't decide to follow my plans I hope that it's given you some ideas for cheap and easy ways to enter into the world of DIY music. Thanks!
Up-Close Manipulation (No Instrument Sound):
Without Timbre Filters (Straight Sine Wave):
With Rough Timbre Filters (Sine Wave with Frequency Modulation):
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May 3, 2009. 5:03 PMvilla_05
says:
good work man, i mean GOOD VIBRATIONS ;)
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1
Mar 21, 2009. 2:54 PMDjFluorescent
says:
terrific sound!! keep it up...... ~plur~
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Mar 15, 2009. 11:53 PMzackbowman
says:
Wow. I gotta make one of these.
Reply
34
Jan 12, 2009. 4:07 AM
jeff-o
says:
jeff-o
says:
Heh, what an interesting new sound you've created! What a neat use for unwanted tech, nicely done. :)
Reply
1
Jan 12, 2009. 4:20 PMdevin_mccutchen (author)
says:
Thanks, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun making it too.
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