Open Sound Control (OSC), an open protocol that can be used in place of MIDI, isn’t the right tool for everything. Hooking up a 4-octave keyboard with some knobs, for instance, makes a whole lot more sense in MIDI, and MIDI is widely supported. But I like OSC’s open-ended message structure for devices like the Nintendo Wii.
On Windows, the dominant Wii tool GlovePIE already supports OSC via scripts. On Mac, several of you pointed us to OSCulator, a tool that lets you turn input from the Wii into OSC messages (Max/MSP, Flash, Processing, Reaktor, Traktor, and others support OSC), and route MIDI to programs that don’t support OSC (everything else).
Just what might you use this for? Matrixsynth beats me to a video demonstrating the Wii as controller for the advanced synthesis tool Kyma (software) / Capybara (DSP hardware):
Now we’re talking. Here’s some smart use of the Wii’s control capabilities:
- Sensor bar for X/Y control. Harp-like glissandi (X axis) and traditional X/Y assignments.
- Pitch/yaw. Tilt for additional control.
- Acceleration gestures. The accelerometer can be used for a “conductor” or “drum stick” effect, as employed by Nintendo in the Wii Music demo.
- Combining Nunchuk: Two controllers allow more refined control, such as:
- Wii Theremin: Two gestural controllers give you the basic two-handed arrangement of the original Theremin — without the calibration problems caused by walking into the instrument’s wireless range.
Well done, “inthegray”!
Amusingly enough, the most successful experiment is arguably the Theremin; ah, the classics. But you can also see the potential of combining two or three critical elements, focusing on what is expressive and controllable, and being clever with assignments. Check out the whole video for lots of inspiration, and then get cracking on your own software instruments!
Novel. 🙂
cool demo. A lot more interesting than the usual "guy maps random DJ effect to Wiimote part 1,000,000". The morphing vowel vox part is pretty nice.
Check out http://usoproject.blogspot.com/ for more fun Wii/Kyma work.
Richard, thanks for the link! Peter, the original video is produced by Symbolic Sound Corporation. Source: http://www.symbolicsound.com/cgi-bin/bin/view/Lea…
Cheers
MM
Kyma seems like a really cool, but expensive app. Is it just like max msp?
[…] CreateDigitalMusic has a little article on using the Wii as a virtual theramin, among other uses … weird. […]
Wii Klangkontrolle…
Und erneut ein Video, was die Klangkontrolle mittels der beiden Nintendo Wii Controlern zeigt. Diesmal wurde dazu das Open Sound Control (OSC), auf einem Apple Mac benutzt. Es werden dabei zahlreiche Anwendungen und Steuerungsmöglichkeiten der Contro…
Kyma is definetly cool, but ridiculous!
Requires proprietary hardware that costs thousands of dollars.
Thanks but no thanks.
[…] Create Digital Music » Expressive Wii: Open Sound Control – MIDI – Wii – Kyma on Mac […]
[…] supported in Processing, Max/MSP/Jitter, Pure Data, and free controller implementations for the Wii remote and Wacom tablet, among many other things. It’s also supported natively by the Monome […]
[…] Wii controlling video with the wii in max/msp: http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/04/10/expressive-wii-open-sound-control-midi-wii-kyma-on-mac/ […]
[…] via createdigitalmusic […]