My first cog!

I finally got some good carbide end mill bits for my gantry router – seriously don’t wast your time with the Dremel cutting bits, they just heat up and burn the material you are cutting. I bought some 1/8″ 2 flute spiral end mills. The cutting is really clean now – and no scorching.

This is a 60 tooth gear for the clock I’m building. I always told myself that the first thing I would build if I got a CNC router would be a clock….

I down, about 20 to go…

I just got an alert that part 3 of the Little Boots laser harp video is up. I love the line “…makes Laser Harps in his bedroom…”

This isn’t entirely correct as all Laser Harps are actually made in my secret underground lair, and I did move out of my Mum’s house several years ago.

Jack in the UK sent me this shot of his laser harp build running…

He actually has a special version of the firmware running on his with adjusted timing (notice the 8 beams rather than 10) I also like the idea of putting the whole thing into a flight case – very neat.

A great picture!

Nice picture

If anyone else has pictures of their build, please send ‘em in…

CNC Router

I just assembled my Christmas present – a CNC Gantry Router kit I ordered from Bluumax. The kit arrived in two boxes – I needed to cut some MDF as a base and table first (this was not supplied).

It took a while to put it all together, as the instructions are provided on the Bluumax site in a picture form – sometimes you can get lost following along. Although once you get the basic idea it’s goes together without too much trouble. The parts are aluminum and acrylic, and the machined fit is very good.

The kit comes with a stepper controller board, but I opted to upgrade this with a parallel port breakout / bipolar controller board from www.easy-cnc.com.

Once it was all hooked up I spent some time trying to decipher the Mach3 software recommended by Shawn on Bluumax. It’s a bit daunting to begin with, but after a while you get used to it – along with LazyCam I was able import a design and produce enough GCode to trace out the pattern on paper with a pen attached to the tool holder.

It was also a chance to use the old laptop I’ve had on the shelf for about 5 years – it actually has a parallel port built in. (and something called a “floppy disk drive”).

Etch-a-Sketch anyone?

Who remembers Etch-a-Sketch...?

Little Boots on stage in Leeds

The Times newspaper published a review of the Little Boots gig in Leeds -

“At the centre of the backdrop a giant skull gazed forebodingly over the throng. On the skittering Gothic spook-pop of Ghosts it established the requisite emotional temperature. As Hesketh shed her back shroud to reveal an all-gold outfit in the opening chords of New in Town, the skull responded accordingly, beaming rays of multicoloured light on to her back. However, the pièce de résistance came when the lights dimmed to reveal an arc of eight laser beams which, when intercepted by Hesketh’s hands, played different notes.

The laser harp — an innovation that seemed like a rich pop star’s folly when Jean-Michel Jarre popularised it — looked like far more fun in the hands of a 24-year-old from Blackpool who claimed to have only assembled it days before the show. As Hesketh navigated a procession of space-age whooshes into the sherbet-scented explosions of her breakthrough hit Remedy — audience-assisted oh-ah-ohs and all — she seemed to switch gear both musically and emotionally. Performing Kate Bush’s Running up that Hill alone on the piano, she was a revelation, replacing the song’s predatory thunder with an autumnal, childlike vulnerability.”

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article6955017.ece

She really is rather good y’know…

Any friend of the Stylophone is a friend of mine.

The view from the front...

I’ve been working away for the last month or so on developing a laser harp controller that could hook into an existing stage lighting rig.

This project was for Victoria Hesketh or “Little Boots” as she is known in the UK.

If you already own an ILDA compatible projector and are looking to add MIDI based interactive laser instruments into your line-up then this will just about do the job…

I can custom build these units, and if there’s enough interest I might start offering them for sale.

The Eigenharp is a MIDI controller + virtual modelling synth engine developed in the UK.

There’s a pretty good movie here that explains what it can do:

You might need to skip the first couple of minutes to get the “meat” of the video.

I posted a comment on the above clip that, in retrospect, came over as terribly smug. I really wasn’t trying to be smug, and I genuinely applaud Eigenlabs for developing a unique musical instrument with cutting edge technology.

I do have a few observations that may present problems when it comes to getting the device adopted by the musical community.

First off I am 100% the kind of musician and geek that would buy this thing – I *love* new tech like this. The only problem is I am also 100% the kind of musician and geek that would *build* this kind of thing – even more so when I checked out the price. At about 70% of the list price I could just about stretch to buying it, but at the current price tag I’m almost certainly going to try and build it. (Teach a man to fish etc…)

The next thing is more of a marketing issue than a technology one. This device looks like it’s trying to be everything to everyone. It’s a bassoon/saxophone/piano/drum/banjo/tenori-on/ and many more besides. I’m not really sure what defines the target market, or how that market is segmented.

Having been involved in a number of failed projects I know that this is crucial to getting your message across.

Instruments like the Haaken Continuum or the Chapman Stick look like they are going after a particular type of musician – it’s very clear what kind of an instrument they are, and who would play them.

I can’t really work out who the Eigenharp is for, and unless that’s made very clear, the message is going to become muddy.

Maybe a better idea would be to start with the basic Eigenharp, then offer options for wind, percussion, string and keyboard players. Then at least there would be an “Eigenharp for you” rather than one Eigenharp for everyone.

It’s also important not to just replicate the sound of existing instruments, but actually produce something new that has a unique sound all of it’s own. The Haaken Continuum achieves this very well.

Finally, the sound producing part of the Eigenharp is software. This means that you need to be tethered to a Mac to play it. I’ve worked with a bunch of elaborate MIDI setups over the years, and the last thing anyone wants is to rely on a computer when playing live. It should be possible to move the sound production mechanism into hardware – either as an external box, or better yet, inside the body of the instrument. There should be no multi-tasking OS, just a quick booting ROM image so you can go from case to performance in under 5 seconds.

There have been many unique MIDI controllers over the years, and a lot of them have fallen by the wayside – I think that the Eigenharp has potential, but needs some refinement in terms of musicality and marketing to make it a success.

…and I missed it.

Maker Faire 2008

I just stumbled across this last night, I remember giving the interview, but forgot to watch it…

I’m sandwiched between the robotic giraffe and the cupcake bicycle at about 1:49

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7mcd1_attack-of-the-show-maker-faire_videogames

Oooh I’m all sweaty.

I recently was asked if it were possible to output continuous controller data from the WiiMote Theremin device I created here

This should be pretty simple as the Toub.Sound.Midi library supports CC data just like the Note On/Off.

If you open up the source code in Visual Studio Express C# – you should be able to find the line in the Form.cs file that plays the notes…

This can be easily changed to support CC data as follows:

// Removed, since we are no longer sending MIDI Notes,
// just CC we do not need to send a note off
//if (LastNoteNo != 255)
//    NoteOff();
// ----------------------------------

// Convert the raw val to a MIDI note by dividing by 10
LastNoteNo = temp;

// This is the line that takes the camera X coordinate value and outputs it as a MIDI note
// start to output CC data instead
//Toub.Sound.Midi.NoteOn _n = new NoteOn(0, 0x0, LastNoteNo, 100);
//Toub.Sound.Midi.MidiPlayer.Play(_n);

// Set this to 0-15 for the 16 MIDI channels
byte MIDIOutChannel = 0;
// Set this to your desired controller number
byte ccNumber = 33;

Toub.Sound.Midi.Controller _cc = new Controller(0, MIDIOutChannel, ccNumber, LastNoteNo);
Toub.Sound.Midi.MidiPlayer.Play(_cc);

I just downloaded the IPhone WordPress application.

So here is my first posting using a tiny tiny keyboard with no tactile feedback at all.

And here is the view from the office window…