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Is it possible to ascertain the motion of fingers above the iPad screen?
I’m undergoing a quandary of control surfaces, and it has occurred to me yet again that I would prefer total freedom.
I quite like the approach of the continuum keyboard, but not the price, although it has limitations. I like to play with Springsound but I really need to sit down and understand the physical modelling mechanisms used here[1]. However, the iPad onscreen keyboard is quite appealing in Springsound (it being, as I understand, a screen emulation of the continuum keyboard). The limitations of the real thing are: unaffordable; laterally backward for me; it doesn’t do anything as you get near it, only when actually touched. The iPad version is the same on the latter point — it doesn’t make any sound if you don’t touch the iPad screen. In fact, I’d say all musical apps have this deficiency.
It’s quite a deficiency — no matter how much subtlety a control interface might offer in up-down discrimination; left-right discrimination; size of touch area; length of touch timing; strength of hit (Garageband instruments are impressively touch sensitive somehow — my guess is the accelerometer?); and many other parameters. However, when it comes to actuation, everything’s pretty much binary. As the finger comes close to the iPad, nothing. At the point that the finger interfaces physically with the glass boundary, something. It’s a very binary parameter — true or false; yes or no; dead or alive. All axes are catered for with subtlety and gradations, except the actual actuation.
The only thing I can think of that overcomes this deficiency in catering for all three dimensions is a theremin. I’ve always fancied a theremin as a toy. There used to be someone in Camden market making little basic ones, but they were a bit too basic. Now we have complex theremins capable of more than just frequency and volume, with CV output, and so much more. But there are still limitations. I’ve been going over theremin videos and suchlike recently, and I think a theremin is not for me. For one thing, If I had a theremin I’d prefer a reversal of principles — firstly, a reversal of antennae to suit left handed use (this is easy and with the exception of the Theremini, already exists). Secondly, and this is the crucial thing: I would prefer (in concordance with my personal model of mapping parametric dynamics) to have high frequencies near me and toward my egocentric ground point and lower frequencies drop away as they go away from me and higher up into the sky. A theremin does this, kind of, but to itself. I’d need to be the theremin myself. I must be a theremin. I’m a theremin. I’m a theremin. How can I accomplish this?
You see what I mean? A theremin doesn’t have this binary boundary of actuation based on untouched/touched, unhit/hit, unplucked/plucked. It has freedom in many degrees of dimensionality. How can this be done on an iPad then? How can a control surface be implemented on an iPad that seems like the Springsound continuum-like keyboard, but also senses the into/out-of dimension of the Z-axis above the glass of the touch display? The camera would be the obvious consideration, but it’s all the way over the incorrect side, and even if I used the iPad upside down so that the camera is under my hand, it’d probably only “see” my wrist anyway, and hence would not be as useful as thought (the close focus is not that close, so if the camera’s autofocus stepping could be intercepted and read, you’d find that it’s not discriminating focus at all because everything’s too close). The more recent iPad’s fingerprint scanner is actually underneath the wrist, but again, probably can’t be used because it can’t discriminate that distance range - only surfaces in contact (like an optical mouse) and also it can’t be fitted to my iPad 2.
If the iPad would use acoustic coupling of the glass screen (instead of a tiny pair of speakers) using something like distributed mode loudspeaker technology technology to turn the glass screen into the speaker transducer itself. That way, it may be possible to also use it as a microphone, and if that were possible, it may be possible to acoustically sense the alteration in resonance caused by the onset or approach of a hand. If it were possible to do this in stereo, using DML sourcing from each opposite edge of the glass to differentiate between a hand approach near the left or near the right side, or a movement from one side to the other, without actually touching the glass yet, then life would be nicer.
[1] I understand physical modelling quite well in general, and own a Yamaha VL-70m but the spring models in Springsound are more complex and differ in ways that I shouldn’t really just generalise into my extant knowledge of physical modelling synthesis or I'll misunderstand the subtleties.
Comments
There are a few theremin styled apps that use the camera and some that use the other sensors that might be of interest. Just search for theremin in the App Store. I suspect that most won't be what you're looking for, but you might find something. I've used AirVox (camera based) before, but it lacked the resolution that I was hoping for.
I remember watching jean michel jarre and his laser keyboard years ago and being blown away, I think all this is coming hopefully to ios as apple acquired prime sense a year or two ago, which is the company that microsoft worked with for kinect.
Ikmultimedia had a go at something similar with the iring http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/iring haven't used one, has an app that sends midi info cc's etc to other apps, also bleep street had an app called gyrosynth that used the accelerometer and gyroscope to control the synth.
I'm interested in using different control methods myself for more expression, so I'm excite to see how all this develops as quite a few companies are working on 3d interaction to control apps, ui's and such.
Wonder why no one has interfaced the Leap Motion controller to the iPad?
https://www.leapmotion.com
Theremins behave just like any other synth when it gets down to it. When your hand leaves the volume antenna it breaks the electrical ground and triggers the sound. The distance of the hand from the antenna is the controller for the volume of the theremin. Even if the hand doesn't touch the antenna, completely closing the ground, it will lower the volume to such a degree that it is effectively off (as in people don't hear it). This is how rests are "played" on a theremin.
We have and are experimenting with both the Leap Motion and the Myo [https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/] as control devices for music apps. They are both fun but we havent yet nailed a killer user experience... still working on it.
We have and are experimenting with both the Leap Motion and the Myo [https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/] as control devices for music apps. They are both fun but we havent yet nailed a killer user experience... still working on it.
thats good to read, i am very interested whats going on around the leapmotion!
Did someone try Geco?
http://www.uwyn.com/geco/
contact DEV Geert Bevin, minutes ago, dont know if the leapmotion is iOS compatibel.
will see.....
very interested vid:
This seems to have potential:
http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/intel-releases-more-details-on-its-f200.html
Don't be afraid to touch the glass.
@u0421793 The AUUG motion synth might be something for you to look at. There are musicians who use the Nintendo Wii remote to control midi via Bluetooth. For those so inclined towards DIY I'm sure you could find ways to use an Arduino micro controller to play your music too. OSC might be the better way to go in terms of getting more control. TC-Data still involves touching the screen but there are a variety of control and relationships between control touches you can specify to control a synth including continuous touches and it supports both midi and osc.
The Wii remote sounds like a very interesting direction. I’ll investigate. Thanks.
I’ve never had a Wii. Probably because it reminds me of the film “Kung Pow — Enter The Fist”.
Only had a quick read but check out the hot hand usb, i have one which does apparently work with the iPad but you'd have to do all the mapping with the desktop editor.
+1 for the Wii control. I would also suggest googling "gestrument kinect". That is brilliant interface to gestrument. I had contacted the tc-data devs regarding some issues with the latest update and requested they look into adding support for kinect much like gestrument has implemented. I think it would be just amazing with tc-data which is my go to touch interface on the iPad.
I did quite some stuff with WiiMotes as Midicontrollers, it's a fun thing. Seems to not be so easy to integrate with ios devices I've read... . @noiise: very much looking forward to possible leapmotion- playthings on ios, great to hear you're working on it!
Did anyone use the Alesis Air Synth? It used some sort of infrared scan pattern, apparently. I’m fairly glad I didn’t buy one at the time, judging by this opinion.
Funny - i have the airFX which shares some algorithms and setup as the airsynth. I got it for $80 though, so i quite like it for the price. Its similar to the roland D-beam.
I've owned the AirSynth and AirFX...of the two, the FX was more useful/unique. Unfortunately, they lack midi and would be heaps more useful if you could use them as controllers. I understand that the keyboard version does have midi control via the dome, however.