EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 35, Issue 04 This issue's topics: Reach out and touch your music (8 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1991 17:53:11 MST From: Adam Schabtach Subject: Reach out and touch your music I'm about to start experimenting with a rather unusual MIDI controller, and I'd like to solicit suggestions and discussion for its development and use. I've been interested in "alternative" controllers for some time; this is my first opportunity to actually design and use one. The hardware consists of a Mattel Power Glove, interfaced to a Macintosh computer. The Power Glove, if you haven't heard of it, was originally designed as a control device for the Nintendo video game system. It consists of a delightfully Buck-Rogers-looking plastic glove, fitted with a keypad for entering data and changing game programs. It connects to a sensor assembly via a long cable. With proper interfacing and software, the Glove becomes a rather versatile source of control data. It provides three-dimensional positioning information (with 8-bit resolution on each axis), longitudinal rotation (with 15 degree, i.e. 12 position, resolution), and independent bend position for each finger and thumb (with two-bit resolution). Its use is restricted to an area directly in front of its sensor assembly (it uses ultrasonic signals to work its magic), but it has an effective range of at least 10 feet. Perhaps best of all, the Power Glove is currently being blown out at Toys R Us for under $30. Given its intended use, the Power Glove obviously doesn't know beans about MIDI. Hence the need for a host computer (a Mac, in my case) for translating the Glove's data into useful MIDI information. The question then becomes one of deciding what is useful. Since the raw data can be translated in any desired fashion, the Glove can behave in a variety of ways, depending on its host software. This is where I hope to encourage some discussion. If *you* suddenly had a three-dimensional joystick with five pushbuttons (which is one way of thinking of the Glove), what would you want it to do? My current idea is something as follows: the left-right axis is mapped to pitch, with lower notes toward the left (i.e. like a piano). The forward-back axis is mapped to a general-purpose MIDI control number (perhaps the mod wheel), and the vertical axis is mapped to velocity. The fingers trigger MIDI notes, so you play a note of a desired pitch/velocity/timbre by moving your hand to a point in space and bending your finger. Wrist rotation determines MIDI channel. I haven't gotten anything actually working yet, because I do not yet have my Glove up and running. (The Glove is easily interfaced to PCs, Amigas, and Ataris, but not so easily to the Macintosh. I have a Macintosh.) There is a mailing list devoted to Glove experimentation; if you'd like to join, send a request to glove-list-request@karazm.math.uh.edu with your name and address. (It's not an automated server; just send a little note saying what you're after.) Be warned that this list is devoted to hardware interfacing details, Glove-driver hacking, etc. and has almost no mention at all of MIDI applications (most people seem to be into the Glove for low-cost virtual reality experiments). Thanks for any feedback. --Adam ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1991 11:26:02 EST From: Marshall Gilula Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music I would see it as banks of banks etc. unless I really missed in your explanation of the wrist rotation and how it could be used to determine MIDI channel. I think the idea is GREAT, and hope to get a couple of the Gloves...but have zip ability to do any of the hardwiring stuff to either my NeXT or my Mac. So I will wait until intrepids such as yourself have something ready for me to beta test. With my Performer and rackmount modules and Steinberger guitar, which I'm still learning to play. As part of the interactive videodisc NeXT software I'm working on [DR TOMORROW], the Glove could be really tantalizing also, but I think that MIDI applications will have to be AT LEAST as good as the pedal controls available. -73- Marshall F. Gilula, M.D. Life Energies Research Institute 2510 Inagua Avenue Miami, FL 33133-3812 (305) 843-8954 FAX: (305) 854-8005 e-mail: mgilula@miasun.med.miami.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1991 11:31:31 -0500 From: "Christian B. Hall" Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music hey Marshall, my name is Christian and i am about to buy all new MIDI sequencing software...i am trying to decide between Performer, Vision, and Cubase. i have a mac IIci. suggestions? (this goes for anyone else, as well. thanks in advance. --Christian -- ...watching and waiting for the Dao ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christian B. Hall Phone: (919) 759-6278 Internet: hallcb@wfunet.wfu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1991 11:42:00 EDT From: RAY BROHINSKY Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music Some questions about the glove: how much unrestricted movement can it percieve? How much does it restrict the wearer's movement? Could I play my guitar controller with one or more of them on? Can anyone post a bibiliography of articles on glove conversions? I have two midi controllers that would benefit from the addition of something like a glove: a G10 guitar controller and a WX-7 wind controller. Either could use augmentation. One thought I'd had was using the velocity of finger movement to control volume, so that a note fingered forcefully would have the volume level set before the note actually started. Then, the velocity-to-breath or velocity-to- starting volume of note that these controllers have pretty irrevocably tied into them could be circumvented. i.e., with the WX-7, I can make breath control volume. Breath still controlls velocity, though. This means that I cannot actually get a note that starts quite and gets a whole lot louder simply because [quite=quiet] the low volume level and the low velocity level make the volume adjustment insufficient to bring the level up a lot. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to play a voice that sounds er, starts with a long transient to play in a quick, quiet run: the transient is tied to velocity (don't have a lot of choice there, and I can't afford another synth, so don't even say xxx-yyy allows that!) and the quieter you play, the longer you have to wait for the note to get up to audible. So maybe I could make something with a glove or two and my amiga that would give me some extra control! raybro ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1991 13:54:34 EST From: "Simon Weatherill" Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music I've looked in my area (Upper Conneticut River Valley - NH/VT) and no one seems to sell the Power Glove. I think I'll have to look in a more populated area... Anyway, I'm assuming that they make a left & right handed version? What say you? simon_weatherill@coat.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1991 19:49:46 -0800 From: Phil Burk Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music Re: Mattell Power Glove and Amigas I think the glove is pretty bulky and the fingers are thick. It's good for waving about but would probably not be great for doing other things with your fingers at the same time. I will know more after tonight. (See below!) Robert Marsanyi has recently written a program in JForth for the Amiga that runs in the background and pulls hi-res data from the glove. Foreground programs can request this data for control purposes. He has posted it to the nets and has included specs for the hardware hack required. He is in fact performing in SF tonight with two other Amiga/JForth/HMSL composers where all three are using gloves to control Amiga local sound! I don't know his e-mail address but if you e-mail to me I will try to put folks in contact. I am: phil@mills.edu days: (415) 461-1442 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 10 Dec 1991 23:09:47 EST From: Eirikur Hallgrimsson 10-Dec-1991 2310 Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music Donald Eastlake has a little company making a product that interfaces the Power Glove to the Mac via the ADB (keyboard) port. It comes with a programming interface, and some other neat stuff. It might get you up and going faster than a homebrew--I know it really took some doing to make it work. $169.00. Probably less if you convince him you are a developer. Eirikur Ah, suddenly I am told that his "Transfinite Systems" business internet address is D2002@Applelink.Apple.com. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1991 23:34:45 MST From: Adam Schabtach Subject: Re: Reach out and touch your music > Some questions about the glove: > > how much unrestricted movement can it percieve? Not sure what you mean by "how much". It senses position of your hand in space in three dimensions, with eight-bit resolution on each axis. It senses rotation of your hand (along the length of your forearm) in 30-degree units. It senses bend of your thumb and fingers with 2-bit resolution (but in practice it's really only one-bit resolution). > How much does it restrict the wearer's movement? Not much as far as moving your hand around in space, although there is a cable coming out of it. Quite a bit as far as moving your fingers is concerned. > Could I play my guitar controller with one or more of them on? Highly doubtful; the fingers aren't very flexible. I don't think you could play a WX-7 with one on, either. It was designed for playing video games, after all. Also note that it only comes in a right-hand version. > Can anyone post a bibiliography of articles on glove conversions? I don't think there are any articles, except the brief one in the July '90 issue of BYTE. However, all the activity on the glove list is archived at karazm.math.uh.edu. --Adam ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************