Kyle McDonald on impossible projects

From “Making Things See” by Greg Borenstein

The easiest way to keep up with the current research is to work on impossible projects. When I get to the edge of what I think is possible, and then go a little further, I discover research from people much smarter than myself who have been thinking about the same problem. The papers can be tough at first, but the more you read, the more you realize they’re just full of idiosyncrasies. For example, a lot of image processing papers like to talk about images as continuous when in practice you’re always dealing with discrete pixels. Or they’ll write huge double summations with lots of subscripts just to be super clear about what kind of blur they’re doing. Or they’ll use unfamiliar notation for talking about something simple like the distance between two points. As you relate more of these idiosyncrasies to the operations you’re already familiar with, the papers become less opaque.

Artists regularly take advantage of current research in order to solve technical problems that come up in the creation of their work. But I feel that it’s also important to engage the research on its own terms: try implementing their ideas, tweaking their work, understanding their perspective. It’s a kind of political involvement, and it’s not for everyone. But if you don’t address the algorithms and ideas directly, your work will be governed by their creators’ intentions.

Guitar Hero in Max

Updated: 5/2014

download

The fretbuz_v0.2 files are on github: https://github.com/tkzic/guitar-hero

dependencies

May need to get the PeRcolate_06 library?

drivers

See this post: https://reactivemusic.net/?p=11504

instructions

This patch (buzz_360) has issues, but it shows how to use and calibrate a Guitar Hero guitar controller in Max/MSP.

Use /guitarhero/buzz_360_tz3 version

There’s no way to make this work clean for a demo without taking apart the whole button driver patch (buzz_setup_360) and it has some serious max6 compatibility issues. So it just needs to be calibrated everytime for now.

Use the GRY mode for a demo…

Before using patch, restart Max.

Works in Max6 – need to calibrate first, don’t worry about tilt and whammy for this app but you need to calibrate them first anyway by pressing the X toggle, tilt, then unpress, or it wont work. when you calibrate the buttons, the X toggle should disappear. then save and untoggle the config box.

Cool modes: (guitar)

To set a mode,

  • hold “back” button
  • then hold down the color code keys (for example, RY means “red and yellow”)
  • then release “back” button

modes

  • RY – solo mode – hold down frets and twiddle
  • GRY – 2 hand tap mode – orange does major 3rd up shift – holding flipper down does one button thing – my favorite!
  • GB – uses tilt sensor
  • also Y – power chords

 

playing piano without sound

An improvisation exercise: Easiest with keyboard Midi controllers. Two or more people play keyboards together, but with no sound output. The Midi is recorded for playback. Keep practicing until it sounds good.

You could also do this with acoustic instruments, or an entire band, if you had really good hearing protection to block the sounds for the players but not the recorder.

http://www.howardleight.com/ear-protection/noise-blocking/noise-blocking-earmuffs

Variation: Using closed cell headphones, all the musicians would be hearing the same soundtrack, for example, “Free Bird”, but unable to hear the instrument they are playing