Emerging Techniques Final Project

 MIDI fingers

After a struggle to find an idea for the last project at Emerging Techs module, I finally decided to make a MIDI glove. In general, you can make sounds or music by touching thumb with other fingers.

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Development of idea

In one of the first sessions, we did paint interactive MIDI controller, after that, I realized I want to do something similar for my last project. As I sometimes play with my fingers as an inaudible piano keyboard (when listening to music), I kind of thought that it would be cool to make it audible!

I usually like conceptual works, with ideas in the background. This time I just really wanted to make something actually work. Practically. I wanted to get know these things about MaxMSP, Arduino&Teensy before I go deeper and make more serious stuff in future. I couldn’t force or fake myself to make some smart philosophy out of this just for a better mark because there is none.

Technical solution development

As I had to choose to cover some of/ all of the module themes we’ve gone through this semester, I decided to use a Teensy board with Arduino software to make the actual midi “device”, in this case, it is wired fingers.

Planning:

1. Make 10 wires for each finger (midi channel), thumbs as a ground.
2. Make a code in Arduino, which allows making a sound by touching each wire and stops the sound when I am not touching it. Basic stuff, to be honest.
3. Make midi samples/sounds for each finger on MaxMSP or Ableton.
4. Figure out how to attach each wire to each finger to make it comfortable to play with i

Process:

1. Actually, making and soldering wires was the thing I enjoyed most during my project. So I made 10 wires, two for thumbs as a ground and 8 for rest of the fingers. I attached a potentiometer to my teensy board as well. But it sometimes fails me by not working or staying in a place, so I didn’t give it an important function. As long as I have tried to make it work and it worked for a bit, it is alright for me. With setting up the breadboard with wires, I found this link very handful to understand the construction of  Teensy https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/teensy31.html.
2. Understanding and dealing with the code was the biggest challenge. I wouldn’t do a thing in the code without Aiden’s help. During the process, I caught up with things I couldn’t make changes of add channels by myself. 

The picture is just an example of how the code looks like.

3. For a sound, at first, I wanted to involve Max MSP. I played with some patches but was struggling to make some of my own. So I decided to stick with my old friend Ableton, to add the sounds for each channel. At first, my plan was to make a major or minor scale. Each tone for each finger. But in practice, things felt different. As wires are attached, fingers feel more clumsy and it is not possible to play it properly, as a piano keyboard for example. So I decided to make different sounds for each finger, just to make it more fun to play with.

4. There was an idea with the glove, but even with a fit glove, I didn’t find it practical or comfortable to play with it. I prefer it direct as possible. So.. nothing original again. I used a tape to make a little loop with wires attached. you can put them and take them off easily.

More pics and video coming soon

Critical view

At first, I think I should have undertaken something coherent, conceptional. Although, I started my work on this one quite in time and did miss only one session which was about 3D printing anyway.

With practical issues. First, I should have work more on potentiometers and other buttons. I wasn’t sure what function would they be. I kept it simple and understandable for me as possible.

Secondly, I thought that making sound with wires will be more manageable. I somehow imagined that it will be almost like sensors. I wanted to be them less visible and attached completely to my arm, but then it wouldn’t be possible for anyone to play with them. Generally, as an idea – it failed. But most importantly, I learned something, and hopefully, I’ll come up with more serious ideas and won’t be afraid to realize them in future.