Project: AR Musicproduction

by Daniel Hienert

ARMusic- create music with your hands

ARMusic lets you create music in an Augmented Reality-Environment with your hands.
The ARToolKit provides a markerbased Augmented Reality-System. On different ARToolKit-Markers different Instruments are shown. There is a drumkit for the rhythm, a keyboard for the chords and a hammond-organ for the melody. These Instruments can be influenced by a pointer-marker and so you can create music. Also there is a mixer, an arranger-board and an instrument-chooser to choose from 127 different sounds for your instruments. This is realized by the combination of two techniques.

The ARToolKit provides the easy-handling Augmented Reality-System, the MIDI-Protocol (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) provides a tool for the sending, receiving, playing and recording of musical operation information. With this protocol you can control all electronic instruments, like samplers, keyboards or synthesizers. Even the synthesizer-chip on computer-soundcards can be controlled. ARMusic- create music with your hands. You can create music without any pre-knowledge, just with his hands.

Different instruments can be controlled by a pointer-marker. With the drum-object you can control different rhythms and the speed of the beat, just by moving the pattern up & down and left & right. The different drum events are visualized on the 3D-model on the suitable part of the drumkit.

The keyboard provides access to the chords, the hammond organ gives access to melody or basslines. These instruments can be influenced by a marker-pattern. The three axis, within the pointer-maker is moved controls the tone-pitch, the tone-length and the tone-volume. On the hammond-organ the pointer controls different chords of the diatonic scale. All musical events are visualized on the suitable instrument. With the instrument- chooser the user can choose one of 127 different sounds, he can attach to the keyboard or the organ.

The user is supported by the system in several ways. All notes and chords are mapped, to let the system stay in tune. The rhythm of the drums is attached to the hammond-organ.

ARTDrums

You are in front of a stereo-projection screen. You can play with your hands or with some drumstick arbitrary drum-or percussion-instruments.

These instruments are depict on the stereo-screen and are animated as soon as there is a hit. A webcam is recording you and your hands, so that you can see yourself in the background of the screen. The drumsound and the panorama-settings is changing, belonging to the point of hit in space. Drumrhythms from MIDI-Files can be loaded and will be animated on the screens drumkit, so the user can train the rhythms.

Media

Arranger