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Posted by: Scott Gentzen Oct 17 2008, 02:32 AM

Something wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmuggHx_H5Y

I think so anyway. Not everyone's cup of tea but I'm up for it. Probably running the guitar signal through MAX/MSP or pd or something like that and controlling it with the Wiimote.


Saw it on Gizmodo today:
http://gizmodo.com/5063943/wiimote-hacked-into-guitar-for-mindbending-accelerometer+based-effects

Update: It's Max/MSP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP62_QKMYaI

Posted by: Outlaw2112 Oct 17 2008, 03:08 AM

thats crazy.... not my type of thing, but im sure it will catch on and some people will be playing with this alot...

just seems like it makes it easier to play guitar, instead of learning to play

Posted by: JVM Oct 17 2008, 03:41 AM

That's pretty cool. You could easily rig it into your guitar if you had a big enough horn and were willing to drill almost another body cavity (though I think it could be taken apart to make it smaller than the wii remotes size but still motion sensing). And probably can adjust some things to make it more responsive so you don't have to look ridiculous playing it but it could easily be used as another wah/volume/mix kind of pedal, but controlling another effect. Could have interesting applications.

Posted by: Bondy Oct 17 2008, 07:24 AM

I'd rather play it the normal way, that sort of thing should stay on guitar hero!!!!

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Oct 17 2008, 09:46 AM

Does nobody want to play a real guitar anymore. I might go and trade all my guitars in for Guitar Hero Plastic Guitars Although it is bloody good fun at parties when drunk.

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Oct 17 2008, 11:25 AM

I gotta a wii But I would never try this ) I seems to work pretty well

Posted by: Fran Oct 17 2008, 03:50 PM

The things one can see in youtube! He must be tired at the end of the concert from lifting the guitar so many times , some cool sounds there though.

Maybe it's the perfect way to practice while playing mario kart though

Posted by: kaznie_NL Oct 17 2008, 03:50 PM

That's wicked

Posted by: fatb0t Oct 17 2008, 04:36 PM

HAHA did you hear him with his band live? I'll bet Dime or Buckethead or any other Digitech Whammy pedal user could utilize that thing, but the inventor needs some guitar lessons hahahahhaha

Posted by: JVM Oct 17 2008, 04:49 PM

Yeah, this could be doing lots more interesting stuff than pitch shifting.

Posted by: Scott Gentzen Oct 17 2008, 09:13 PM

Exactly!

You can do almost anything once you get it started. Pretty much the only limit in MAX/MSP is your imagination and your patch development skills. You have 4 buttons, a d-pad and an accelerometer at your disposal and you can use any combination of those inputs to make MAX do...things.

I bet you could rig it to control your pedals somehow. Would have to wire in some kind of electronic/MIDI control switch to switch em on and off, but it could work. You could pipe those commands over to Guitar Rig, or send controls over to the Pod or a multi-effects pedal. More practical than dancing on your pedals? Maybe, maybe not. Food for thought though.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 17 2008, 09:50 PM

I don't get how he does that? Does he have some special software for wii or something

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 17 2008, 10:49 PM

I would guess that he hooked the WII controller up to a Digitech Whammy somehow - it seems like it was fairly linear, like up in 1 position and down in another though. Maybe I am doing him a disservice though, maybe he programmed the Wii

Posted by: Scott Gentzen Oct 17 2008, 11:15 PM

I'm excited...I have soemthing I can speak to with some authority. Doesn't happen often here considering my guitar skills.

The Wii actually isn't involved here at all. The Wiimote communicates over plain old Bluetooth, so you can have your computer recieve the accelerometer and button data. Keep in mind that the Wiimote's accelerometer detects movement in any direction....if you watch close, the sound change is different when he moves the headstock up and down versus when he lifts the body towards him.

What happens when that data gets into your computer? I'm glad you asked!

The other video mentions that he's using Max/MSP (http://www.cycling74.com/products/max5) which is kind of an audio/video programming environment. You build patches to create and/or manipulate sounds. You see it more in electronic music than with guitar players, but Radiohead use it quite a bit too.

You basically can build the sound manipulation into a patch and then use the data from the Wiimote to change various parameters inside the patch. Looked like he was also switching patches with the Wiimote buttons too.

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Oct 17 2008, 11:40 PM

Ahh, thanks Scott - excellent explanation! (I was way off base then )

Posted by: kjutte Oct 20 2008, 02:38 AM

I didn't like the use of it, but cool effects.

Posted by: fkalich Oct 20 2008, 03:40 AM

I will pass. There is an old Taoist story about this kind of thing, let me look it up. Here it is.


TZU-KUNG WENT SOUTH TO CH’U, AND, RETURNING BY way of the state of Chin, he was passing along the south shore of the Han River when he saw a big fellow working in a one-acre held of vegetables. He was climbing down into a pit well with a pitcher, then climbing out and pouring the water on his crop. It looked like he was working himself to the bone without getting much advantage from his efforts.

“There’s a mechanism for this,” Tzu-kung said, “and with it, in a single day you could inundate a hundred acres. It doesn’t take Mach effort, and it yields a great advantage. Wouldn’t you like to have one?”

The gardener rose up and gave him a look. “How’s it work?”

“It’s a machine constructed of wood, heavy at one end, light at the other. It lifts the water like a dipper, lots of it, so much that it gushes out as if it were boiling over. It’s called a well sweep.”

The gardener made an ugly face, then said with a laugh, “I’ve heard my teacher say, ‘Where there are machines, there will be machine problems; where there are machine problems, the mechanical will find entry into the hearts and minds of the people; when people’s hearts and minds become mechanical, what’s pure and simple is spoiled. Without the pure and simple, the spirit knows no rest. And when the spirit knows no rest, even the Tao can’t carry you on.’ It’s not that I don’t know about your machine, but that I’d be ashamed to use such a thing.”

Posted by: JVM Oct 20 2008, 06:40 PM

I disagree, fkalich. This kind of thing would only make things easier if you wanted it to. It could also be used to do things that you simply couldn't do. Is a delay pedal a 'shameful' thing because it repeats notes that we could, actually, repeat ourselves? Of course not, it allows us to do other things instead of repeating that note. I personally wouldn't use this kind of thing to "replace" bending and other methods of pitch shifting but it has other, more interesting uses.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 20 2008, 09:12 PM

Well, I think fkalish made his point in his own (to me weird) way, and I agree with him on this wii matter. I think putting a wiimote to a strat and moving the neck up&down to bend the note is silly

Posted by: Jarl Emil Oct 20 2008, 10:08 PM

What do you get from doing that? i dont get the point:S Some psychedelic sound you get or something? haha

Posted by: Noangels Oct 20 2008, 10:27 PM

lol I might modify one of my guitars with my wii remote and use it for rehearsals with the band!would be the last rehearsals with them too as they should boot me out the room for looking like an idiot and sounding like an old school computer.
I can see that working for some players out there into this side of things-mind you roland have that d beam thingy on some of their products that you can wave you guitar neck up and down to change pitch-you could use your hand,head or any body part to change pitch if so desired