Wii

Hello all, sorry for the long delay in posts. I’m currently in Paris with my brother Cory doing original music and sound design for a play written and directed by our cousin Fabrice. It takes place on the grounds of a 13th century abbey in Maubuisson and features some amazing new songs by my brother and some pretty bizarre sonic creations by me! Read more about it here (page in French only).

In other news, I’ve been interviewed by the website node3000 about my Wii Loop Machine. Go read it! Thanks to Martin for the interview, and thanks to Agata for the photo!

The response to my Wii Loop Machine software was truly overwhelming, it took me completely by surprise. It has motivated me to work much harder on it, and today I finished a website dedicated to the Loop Machine where you can download the new version 1.1:
The Official Wii Loop Machine Website

This update only changes a few things (described on that page), but over the next couple of months I hope to keep working on it to incorporate most of the suggestions people have made – bpm/tempo settings, quantization, and audio input, to name just a few. Check back often for news and updates. As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with comments or questions.

This weekend I finished the Wii Loop Machine software that I started a few weeks ago. It’s a system for using the wireless Wii remote to sync, control, and manipulate loops in real time.

It’s now ready for download as a standalone application…if you have a Mac with OSX (10.4.8 or 10.4.9 recommended) and bluetooth and a Wii controller then you should give it a try:
Download the Wii Loop Machine Version 1.0
[edit] Please go to my new website dedicated to the Wii Loop Machine, there you will find the latest version of the software as well as a FAQ and more: www.theamazingrolo.net/wii.html

It uses the aka.wiimote object for Max/MSP by Masayuki Akamatsu.

Download it, unzip it, and follow the directions in the patch (it will probably take a couple of tries to get it working). It will automatically load in the samples that are in that folder, but you can load your own as well. If you don’t have any other samples you can download these samples from my song “Hold still for a sec” off my album.

Please let me know what you think, what you would like to see improved. Send me an email if you would like to see the code – I would especially like to hear from you if you would be able to make a Windows version.

And now you can watch a video of me looking ridiculous while playing with this software…

[edit] If you’re having trouble with anything, check the comments for this blog for some tips. Next week I’ll post some help videos and better directions.

No music this time, but here are a couple of other things for you.

As I mentioned earlier, one of my current school projects entails making “Loop Composer” software that uses a Nintendo Wii wireless controller as an interface.

I’ve finished a very early prototype, which you can play with if you happen to have Max/MSP, a Wii controller, and a bluetooth enabled computer. Click here to download the Max patch, directions, and a pdf of a short presentation I will be giving on thursday. If anyone does test it I would be grateful for feedback. Right now it is quite skeletal with very few features, but it responds well enough and I’ll be using it at my show tomorrow night. [edit: this version is no longer supported! go download the new, much fancier version]

Which reminds me, I’m playing a show with a lot of friends tomorrow night at 8pm in the Forest Cafe here in Edinburgh. It’s free and it should be a good time!

Last week I wrote a film sound analysis about silent Soviet film of the 20’s. Read it here! It’s called “The Sound of War in Silent Soviet Film” and talks mostly about The Battleship Potemkin and The End of St. Petersburg.

One of the scenes (from “The End of St. Petersburg) I talk about can be watched on youtube.

For some reason the other scene (from “The Battleship Potemkin”) won’t upload to youtube, but the full film is available for free download at archive.org.