NYU Music Technology E85.2035: Gadgets and Gizmos

So I never really thought about it, but it is possible to create my own digital instruments. I guess it seemed like it might be too expensive or complicated, but possibly not. The idea came to me as I was doing a little Saturday morning reading.

I was reading Macworld today, and there's a feature article entitled, "Control the World: Microcontrollers connect hobbyist hardware to your Mac" by Brian Jepson. In the article he designed a sensor for his computer chair. The sensor interfaced with the computer to flash some script across the screen that would tell him to get up and take a break. It was a cute idea, and something that seemed doable. This was accomplished by using software, the microcontroller board, and hardware/components that are connected to the microcontroller. The microcontroller board is made by a company called Arduino. It costs around $35 for a fully assembled board, and then you buy the sensors and wires and either use them as a stand-alone, or connect them to a computer and use software. The Arduino site describes this flexibility eloquently,

"Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. IT's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP)."

This really made me begin to think. If I could control software in new ways, potentially I could create music that is not limited to common input devices such as a MIDI controller. Not that there's anything wrong with a MIDI keyboard (currently one of the two MIDI controllers I own) but a MIDI keyboard is tied to tonality (unless you're cool enough to program it differently-and I'm not). So potentially one could create any type of device that one could imagine, assuming the components were available. So, I thought I'd take a look as to the components that were easily available. I also took a peek at what other people are creating with this. Here are some links.

Vendors

Communication

Examples