MIDIbox of the Week (MIDI-->sofa<-- by Seppoman)

[TK.]

Here´s a quite unusual MidiBox 64 - 6 faders are built into a sofa and

put out CC values. This sofa will be used as a controller in a

university project. We´re building a multimedia installation using

MAX/MSP which will be a mixture of video art and interactive surround

music. The sofa will probably controll some musical values. Another

application is a Pong-like video game that is played by two people

sitting on the sofa. As you can see, each seat measures a left and right

bottom value and one in the back, so you can move the paddle by putting

more weight left or right and tilt it by leaning backwards.

[bosone]

this is really INSANE!!!!!!!!!  ;D  ;D  ;D

midiboxer fantasy will never reach the top!! :-)

we have built midiboxes inside phones, shoes box (well... indeed my old midibox), old floppydsik case, electrical thermometers... and now the midibox is spreading into our home!!! :-)

[Wise]

Oh my !

This is a just so cool !  ;D ;D  ;D

What about some kind of "butkicker"  ??? installation in this "midibox", could be controlled and amplified from an aout  ;)

And yeah, I have the exact same sofa, the best sofa ever to rest or sleep in ;D

[Afro88]

hahaha, that's really cool  ;D

[moxi]

Astounding!!!

What a live performance you can do with such a box! Maybe this design announce how will look the Night-club of this new millenary!!!

Did you think about controling a "speech simulator" , it could be usefull for the too long evenning with family and friends ,where nobody find something to talk about! ;)

[hallucinogen]

mad idea !

8)

[srmaietta]

Great concept.. Id love to see it hooked up to music at a party without anyone knowing..  It would be fun to see and listen.  See how long it took before anyone noticed. 

also (sorry if this seems crude..)  I have this DIY delay that makes the most human "farting" sounds..  How funny would it be if this sofa controlled the fart machine.  anytime someone moved or got up or sat down..  lol lol

lol

haha  sorry!

thanks : )

Great Job!

~Steve

[Jidis]

Id love to see it hooked up to music at a party without anyone knowing

Yeah, link it to a gain parameter on a low frequency EQ and it would sound like the worst room mode problem on earth.  :-X

[seppoman]

Hey guys,

thanks a lot for all your comments :)

As the "Pong-Like Game" is quite functional by now (though not finished yet), I´ve made a small video clip of the sofa being used. Playing the game definitely makes one look silly ;) - Any musical application is still to come.

Here´s the link: http://www.seppoman.de/sofa/Sofafilm.mov

Seppoman  8)

[Screaming_Rabbit]

Playing the game definitely makes one look silly

... YEPP!!!  ;D ::) :D ;D - cool  ;D

Greets, Roger

[Jidis]

Just watched that .mov! That is cool. Needs to be parked in front of a big screen TV though. A long couch with proportional spacing to the two hands would be cool too, but when we all make MIDIbox couches, then I guess we can start nitpicking over such things ;)

Seppoman- If you're here, how accurate is the tracking on that thing (or was it mentioned already)?

George

[Jurbo]

Checked the video - finally a respectable form of computerised physical exercise for the old skool types who think a Nintendo with a dance mat is ridiculous!  :P

[seppoman]

Hi,

Just watched that .mov! That is cool. Needs to be parked in front of a big screen TV though.

Sure, on presentation we´ll be using either a plasma TV or a beamer for the real feeling. Some sound effects and a bit better graphics will also be added. And there´s no real "game flow" up to now, so perhaps more levels (e.g. with obstacles), some bonus point system etc. is needed :)

A long couch with proportional spacing to the two hands would be cool too, but when we all make MIDIbox couches, then I guess we can start nitpicking over such things ;)

I´m not sure what you mean by "proportional spacing to the two hands"? If you mean the sofa is a bit narrow, you´re right - but perhaps it´ll help some relationships to be founded ;)

Seppoman- If you're here, how accurate is the tracking on that thing (or was it mentioned already)?

Well, the single faders of course work linear. The value range of the outer bottom sensors is a bit smaller and the middle ones have slight "crosstalk" problems. I´m thinking of splitting the cloth between the two seats and adding a wooden hard border there. This would probably solve both issues, but also look a bit strange. Perhaps it´s easier to find some algorithm and do this in software. At the moment, we´re just calculating a delta value between left and right and will probably do some kind of "calibration phase" before the game starts to put the hand to mid position when there´s no movement. We´ll have to record and analyse what happens to the second seat when one person moves and the other doesn´t to find a way to minimize crosstalk.

But it´s also not that important to get perfectly accurate values. The game already reacts quite well to the movements, and as the seats are near, your neighbour affects your position anyway. In musical context, precision is also not so important. You won´t be able to play the Flight of the Bumblebee on a sofa anyway and for e.g. filters or abstract parameters like "complexity of an arrangement" the precision is good enough.

Seppoman 8)

[Jidis]

Seppoman,

Thanks for the reply and the fascinating project and pictures. I need to look more closely at the bottom of that thing now. I wouldn't think the couch spacing would be that much of a problem after the players were wrapped up in the game and the screen. What I meant, was sort of like how the old Mac OS's would allow you to arrange the monitor relationship in the control panel to match the actual physical orientation of your screens in dual display mode. Like, if your secondary monitor was a foot away from the main one, you could put a "gap" in the mouse tracking to make it look and feel the same.

I could probably learn some stuff from the mechanics of that couch. I ride a stationary bike most days and I'm also a drummer. I've broken cranks on two of the bikes over the years and just stuck them in storage and replaced them. For years I've wanted to fix one of the broken ones and replace the moving "arm" section with two or more electronic drum pads and a variable resistance or just a switch setup tied to the chopped off lower arm sections, which would generate a MIDI clock output and maybe even a metronome signal, if there was no sound module. That way, I could get back some decent rudiment and practice time while I exercised :) I'm a long ways from it in my PIC assembler knowledge though. I would probably have to set up some type of "clock divisor" or multiplier routines, so the tracking wouldn't lock me to some ridiculous tempo and I could change it for different things, but it would still feel synced to the motion of the pedals.

                                                       -Take Care

George   

[Artesia]

This much amuses me :)

Hmm what next ? ...there's a challenge ...time for people to see how far they can strectch conventional applications of MIOS :)

If.. no one else thinks anything up... i might just have to do something crazy too :)

[MTE]

;D  F R E A K S  ;D

what about Midibox - Bed ?  :P

Regards

MTE

[stryd_one]

That adds another meaning to the phrase 'porno music'  ;D

[stryd_one]

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/07/musical_midi_so.html

Hey Seppoman did you know makezine are making a buck outta you? :)