Flex

Recording Services and the IT department are both talking about having video broadcasting be a thing that they do, so I'm interested in pushing for this even more.

Flex can do this:
http://www.swfflex.com/blog/1/2008/11/Flash-Video-Chat.cfm

I'm going to check this out too.

Webcast!

Project:

Broadcast live video and audio from the MSU Composition Department Premieres Concert on Tuesday, October 20th, hopefully with titles and fades and a physical interface.

Things we need:

Software mixing of two video sources, fading in and out
Processing things to learn:

• alpha mixing of two video sources, black screen
• multiple outputs, so you can monitor everything and send a separate feed out
  
• dynamic text stuff (typing, displaying)
• MIDI input from knobs on MIDI controller to do fading, crossfading
• outputting video to something Justin Tv or Ustream can take
  (manycam?)

Alternatively, doing it in Pd with Gem, I feel would look less nice, but the list of things to learn may be shorter.

• multiple video sources
• nice looking transitions
• nice looking text, in strict 2D

*shrug * more?

Processing... oh yeah...

This post is mostly for the button project. So, this software Processing can record audio, do stuff with mp3s (I know it can open them and stream ones from online, hopefully write them too) and generate code / communicate with other software/scripts for posting, and it's best at communicating with Arduinos serially, as they use almost the same language for programming and communicating and whatever. It can also look sweet for the web-side stuff. And, it's free (not like Flash) so we wouldn't have to buy it. Should we go this way, here are more things to learn:

• how to do file creation/manipulation for the mp3 files and rss feed creation stuff
• communicating to something like Flex or Ruby on Rails to update the podcast info and update files on the server
• and, I suppose, learning to do all the audio recording stuff in Processing, but that shouldn't be too bad
• maybe how to make a sweet web-side front-end for the whole project. It may load way too slowly, but we'll see

eh? this could consolidate the Audacity-Scripting process we had talked about earlier, if it's possible to save mp3 files out of Processing.

I also want to try making a website that is flashy and fun, either with Processing or Flex using Degrafa. More on that later.

Computerless button???

So, I've been reading some things on the web today about Arduino and ethernet. Here's what I got:

• Nate mentioned that arduino doesn't have enough memory to adequately deal with audio. Well, maybe your srub board does, but the new Arduino Duemilanove (that's 2009 for those of you that don't habla italiano) has TWICE the memory of the Diecimila. But as Billy Mays said, "And that's not all!" The reason it has twice the memory is that it uses a new Atmel chip, the ATMega328 (as opposed to the ol' 168). Like the 168, the 238 by itself is really cheap ($5ish or less), and you can just pop it in to your board in place of the 168! Brilliant! I don't know if even doubling the memory would fix the problem, but experimenting would be cheap.
• Then I read about this sweet project from the folks at NYC Resistor. It's a server library called Webduino. The guy who did the write up on Google Code clearly knows more about servers and the interwebs than me, so I won't butcher the jargon. Read about it yourself, here. Also, he's got a slideshow explaining it that I can very nearly understand!

At this point, I must defer to my much MUCH more informed colleagues. Would these two things in combination allow for the button to function independent of a PC? Doing so would allow us more freedom in button placement, as we wouldn't need to worry so much about putting a computer somewhere. However, it would make the buttons themselves more expensive and more costly to replace if damaged or stolen. Thoughts?

One more quick thing

Just a quick project. D-Touch. Does anyone know where to get Euro-sized paper in East Lansing?

posting ben's response - thanks!

Here's the link to server related info that I use when setting one up. One caveat, it's much larger and more documented than the last time I built a SAMBA/FTP box. C'est la vie...

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Servers

At the least, we'll need to create a server with the ability to ftp to a site (or potentially host the site), run an app to record and syndicate (probabrly in ruby), communicate with apple/windows machine through a SAMBA install (backup purposes), with suitable firewall and remote access permissions (IPTables).

Also, if we decide to go with ruby on rails or drupal, it might be a good idea to go with turnkey linux (http://www.turnkeylinux.org/) for sheer ease of setup/use.
-Ben

Serial to Socket Server

So, to use an Arduino with some computer software, the communication comes in as serial data, which Pd and Max/MSP can use, but which don't work in internety things like Flash and Air. Apparently it's a bad idea to give control over serial ports to things that are internet-hackable. *shrug*

So, to use an Arduino with Flash or Flex/Air, we have to set up a Serial to Socket Server, which doesn't seem to tricky... so yeah, more investigation:
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Interfacing/SerialNet

Also, I bet the kind of recording/playback we want from the "button" button could be achieved with a combination of Flash and Flex, all the audio stuff happening in Flash. Recording may not be free in Flash, in a really bad way. More investigation:
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Flash/Audio/1

How to play the sampolin!

When I was in composition class as a sophomore at the University of Missouri, we talked briefly about composer/performance artist Laurie Anderson. We learned about an electronic instrument she created, the tape-bow violin. Basically, she had a violin body with no strings. About where she would bow a regular violin, she had a tape play-head. Then, where the hair of a bow ought to be, she had magnetic tape that had sounds recorded to it. By drawing the tape across the playhead, she could play the samples in either direction at any speed. Cool right? I'm glad you agree.

The sampolin is a digital version of Anderson's tape-bow violin, with a couple of extra features. Our sampolin will not actually use magnetic tape. Instead, it will control the playback of several digital samples on a computer, using Puredata. Because it's digital, we can change from one sample to another very quickly. (Anderson had several different bows that she could switch out.) So the left hand will have several buttons to press which can trigger different samples.

Another extra feature will be a recording "string." Anderson's violin had one contact point for the bow. The sampolin will have two. One to playback pre-recorded samples and one to record in new samples live. Playing both the record and play strings simultaneously (as a double-stop) could hopefully give us a kind of delay effect.

The last feature (and biggest "maybe") that we hope to add is pressure sensing under the play "string" to control volume. The more pressure from the bow, the louder the output. This is the biggest maybe for two reasons: 1) the sensor that would account for pressure is kind of expensive. 2) it would mean I have to practice this crazy instrument. The more complex it gets, the more the sampolin behaves like a "real" musical instrument. The closer this thing gets to that level of complexity, the more practice it will require to achieve sampolin virtuosity.

Currently, we have a working(ish) sampolin prototype. It's basically made of dowel rods, foam board, and wire. It's held together by Scotch tape and cable ties. It's controlled by (or does it control?) an Arduino microcontroller, which drives a patch in Pd. Here it is in all it's...um...glory?


Side notes:

• A Guitar Hero controller is really close to the same size as a viola. Nate plays the viola. Hmm...
• Tomorrow's shopping list for RadioShack, Lowe's, and Tractor Supply includes the following: pushbuttons, flexible copper tubing, graphite lubricant spray, and quarter-inch audio jacks.
  

new projects: new blog

So, we started a club a while ago we dubbed "AV club" and it came slightly after our band "Folio" but has all the same people, so it's sort of like a sequel. Thus: Folio 2 - AV Club (let me know if you think this is a poor choice for a temporary blog title) : )

New projects are here:

1. Sampolin
2. MSU comp studio internet radio
3. The "button" button / blog-o-phone / communal music student podcast

Things we'll use to make these (which we may or may not know how to use yet):

1. Arduino
2. Flex / Ruby
3. Pure Data / Max/MSP
4. Ubuntu Server Edition
5. Fun self-fabricated hardware
   
6. Composition student ingenuity
7. Inter-departmental collaboration, if we get some sense

So far, we're brainstorming and taking the first steps on each of these projects, which mostly means downloading the software and trying it out, learning what exactly it is we'll have to teach ourselves to do. Will we ever write music? ...