The Wiinstrument
GosuA new way to control MIDI with your Wii remote
Hi everybody.
Ever wanted to have a cheap external MIDI controller that's wireless? Or to play a groovy drum loop in your sequencer without having to set note delays manually? Then the following blog entry may be for you.
Having released the Wiinstrument on Breakpoint '07 in Bingen am Rhein, we decided to share a preliminary version of the software with you.
The Wiinstrument is basically a MIDI instrument that is controlled by a connected Nintendo Wii remote (with a Nunchuk controller, if available). The controller is available separately and can be connected to your computer via Bluetooth.
It features:
- A graphical interface with OpenGL graphics.
- Two modes (with awful puns in their namings! \o/)
- Percussion mode: Smack both controllers to trigger MIDI notes (with velocity recognition)
- Keyboard mode: button presses are mapped directly to MIDI notes. Various scales (chromatic, blues, minor, major) are available so that you're even able to play melodies on it.
- Open Source: It doesn't cost anything and everyone can implement new features!
- It's designed to be portable, so it should be easy to port it onto other platforms like Linux or Windows.
Application examples:
- Record groovy MIDI drum patterns directly in your software sequencer! (using a loopback MIDI device)
- Control your MIDI compatible VJ or lighting setup with it!
- Tape it onto your e-guitar and control your guitar effects hardware by tilting your guitar!
- Use it for whatever you would use a hardware MIDI controller - but cheaper (a Wii remote costs about 40 EUR/USD)—and it's wireless :)
It's currently available for MacOS X 10.4.9—We're already porting it to Linux...
Known Issues:
- The Wii remote may not always be recognized, as it identifies itself as Bluetooth HID device, but doesn't follow the HID specs. Apple's Bluetooth department seems to be working on making the Bluetooth implementation compatible to Wii remotes so that the OSX kernel driver doesn't try to make a concurrent connection to the Wii remote to an application. The result has been announced to be included in Leopard, so stay tuned :)
- If you don't get a connection to the Wii remote when starting the Wiinstrument, don't panic: Just go to your Bluetooth system preferences, remove the connection to "RVL-CNT-01" manually and retry the connection (We're working on a simpler connection procedure...)
- The graphical user interface is preliminary, a better looking one is in development.
- Sometimes the MIDI output lags. We're working on a fix for that.
- Mapping acceleration sensor axes to MIDI control change instruction isn't implemented yet.
- If the application closes unexpectedly, please report it together with the content of your ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/The Wiinstrument.crash.log file so we can fix the problem.
Just download it and enjoy.
To connect it to your sequencer/sampler, start Apple's Audio/MIDI Setup tool (you can find it in the Utilities subfolder of your Applications folder), activate the IAC device (Apple's loopback MIDI device) and drag it to the first place of the shown device list. You'll see a new IAC MIDI input device in your sequencer then.
Any comments and reports are appreciated :) If you have a problem that's not addressed in the known issues above, please write us which platform you are working on.
Additional credits go to: survivor/screenfashion for the Gosu library. Hiroaki for the Darwiin Remote framework. Tobias Moebert for porting the application to Linux. The PortMidi and Boost library staff. Rest of the Breakpoint '07 staff for the wonderful party. Bye .o/ [Update on Apr 16, 2007] Linked 0.1.1 (bugfix release).