Robot tech in Future Instruments

[ian-s]

It would undoubtedly be possible to make a real instrument like this, using the latest silicon technology.

This may be one of the few situations where playing the virtual instrument in front of an audience, is less embarrassing than playing the real thing.

[phoenix]

For those who are still as enthusiastic about this topic as me, I write an abstract of the previous postings:

I will distinguish between hardware and software postings.

Robotic hardware:

drjustice: fully servoed glove. Glove at the end of a telemanipulator. force and damping at each finger joint. Force if you touch something in a virtual environment.

mosc: interactive sound sculptures (robots with non-human look)
sequencer steering with buchla lightnin system

g2ian: use nextgen materials like silicon for robots

kkissinger: robots reacting/dancing to music.
synths reacting dynamically to man's input


Haptic Software:

phoenix: virtual haptic models of instruments- resonance, destroyable. Like Mp3 psychophysically adapted to the human. Haptic Feedback.

opg: many many virtual control knobs

elektro80: GUI-tactility. 1 EG per finger.

bachus: virtual keyboard with morphing haptic representation

[phoenix]

[opg]

Why do I have this weird feeling that if/when this technology is in use, it would be lots of fun but REALLY BORING to the average audience?

[bachus]

[opg]

[phoenix]

[Uncle Krunkus]

How about something which can read brainwaves, and then use these signals to feed a neural net which over time would learn to interpret the responses you were having to the sounds it made out of them?

You hear a sound
Which elicits a response
Which the net associates with the sound
And converts into an algorithm
Which can evolve other algorithms
And are used to make a new sound
Repeat

Probably using a number of channels at the same time would ramp up the complexity pretty quickly. Even just used as a mixing aid, would mean anyone could think their own mix of any track in real time.

[phoenix]

[Jyoti]

[destroyifyer]

Uncle Krunkus writes,

[bachus]

[destroyifyer]

I feel greatly insulted. Fine then! I hereby declare war on la-la land! Snipers, take out thier unicorn leigons! Bombers, napalm thier fields of psychadelic flowers! Impale the gnomes! Enslave the mermaids...Poison the crystal river! Turn the talking clouds to smog...Take King Bachus prisoner, and bring him to Isengard. Off with his head!

[destroyifyer]

Jyoti writes:

[Uncle Krunkus]

[mosc]

[elektro80]

[destroyifyer]

I wrote:

[mosc]

No hard feelings, of course.

I'm very much looking forward to meeting you in Kingsport.

[Inventor]

How about a robotic glove that teaches me to play the guitar? I've just started learning and like most beginners I'm having trouble fingering the frets properly. Not that I've practiced until my fingers bled or anything, but I was thinking that a haptic glove that actually pushed on my fingers to guide them to the proper position on the fretboard would be a great teaching device. It wouldn't have to push that hard, just provide some guidance.

[elektro80]

It´s all about concepts and culture.

I´m expecting that one major future advance is fuzzy parameter assignment to gesture controlled objects. There are many uses, but since we are talking synthesis ( or whatever ) then imagine shaping envelopes in the air.. using your hands.. and then assign say filter/spectral/waveform controls to event states on the envelope shape. OK, this sounds like Hollywood doing its magic on Philip K. Dick´s The Minority Report or something of the sort. Still, gesture control and the whole VR thing will see daylight one day. I´m guessing that the most obvious early mainstream application would be for making music. We do have prototypes running this shit that kinda do this already, but what we want to see are mass market products.

[Inventor]

[Jyoti]