James Patten and Ben Recht, at the MIT Media Lab, have created a fascinating new tool called Audiopad. This is a hyperinstrument - a flat surface with embedded antennae that allows it to sense the position of objects on its surface. Combined with custom software and a video projector, this allows you to directly manipulate sounds and samples by moving the objects on the Audiopad’s surface, with the graphics following your actions.
You can see a video (QuickTime/Windows Media) of Audiopad in action; the authors are currently not distributing the software, unfortunately. It runs on Linux, is written mostly in Python, with low-level sensing code for the objects in C and C++.
I frankly hope that they don’t turn it into a commoditized piece of software; I can’t think of any commercial music company that would distribute a package with source code. Being able to fiddle with it and make it do what you wanted would be the real appeal for me.
The hands-on aspect of Audiopad particularly fascinates me; the ability to set up an audio space, move things around in it, and control them by nearly-direct physical manipulation. It’s a level up from keyboard interaction; more like the stuff CASSIEL is doing with off-the-shelf equipment and MAX. This is something that current performers need; a way to more easily gestalt what’s happening and interact with it on an intuitive level rather than constantly shifting focus from screen to keyboard to mixer to mouse and so on.
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