Project Summary¶

This project was first developed for the Royal Academy of Engineering exhibit at the Big Bang Fair 2011. The aim was to create an engaging interface that creates music with the Kinect in order to encourage students study music technology.

The Kinect camera can track up to 3 people within a space approximately 3m x 3m. The positions of the people relative to the camera affect the music generated with person controlling different instrument.

System Architecture¶

User Tracking¶

Kinect. OpenNI Openframeworks extension.

Metronome¶

Max/MSP.

Chord and Note Generator¶

Processing.

Synthesiser¶

Ableton with Max for Live.

How to Set It Up¶

First, make sure you have the most recent code from the repository.

Set Up Network¶

1. On a Mac, click on the wireless icon next to the clock and select "Create Network..." from the drop-down menu.
2. Choose a name and password for the network. Use the Automatic channel selection. Five letter network names and passwords have proven to be less error-prone when pushing around OSC data, though this may mostly be superstition.
3. Open System Preferences, go to Network Settings, click on "Advanced..." and then select the TCP/IP tab. Note the IP address. Repeat this process for any other computer being used on the network.

Start Chord Generator¶

1. Open HeresyBigBangDone.pde in Processing (be sure to use version 1.2.1 or later).
2. In the file Header, set the NetAddress ableton variable to the IP address of the computer running Ableton. Save the sketch.
3. Hit the play button to start running the program OR export it as a standalone application by choosing "Export..." from the File menu.

Start Metronome¶

1. Open Abletons Max Connection.maxpat in Max/MSP.
2. In the object indicated in the lower left portion of the patch, enter the IP address for the computer running the Processing application.
3. Click on the toggle switch indicated in the upper left portion of the patch to begin the metronome.

Start Camera Tracking¶

1. Plug in the Kinect camera to the computer that will be running OpenFrameworks.
2. Open XCode project containing the OpenFrameworks environment which points to the .cpp and .h files from the "of" directory of the repository.
3. In testApp.h, change the variable HeresyHost to the IP address of the computer running Processing. Save the file.
4. Hit build and run to start the application.

Start Synthesiser¶

1. Open Ableton ExCelv2.als in Ableton.