MIT Students' Audiopad Mixes Electronic Music 122
nicodemus05 writes "Grad students at MIT's Media Lab have come up with an innovative control device called the Audiopad to run their digital music studio. The Audiopad, '...is a composition and performance instrument for electronic music which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface and converts their motion into music.' It's practical, but more importantly it looks really, really cool."
I've seen it live.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Done before? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the description, other than using a tabletop as its active surface, i'm wondering how different it is to Korg's Kaosspad in functionality.
http://www.korg.com/gear/info.asp?A_PROD_NO=KP2
Re:The interface is amazing.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The really low budget version of this would be a software-only product controlled by mouse. It would probably sell, even though some functionality would probably be lost.
sigh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Loads of universities create student projects but they basically give it the attention it deserves: they are student projects; practical definately, revolutionary, not by far. Their main purpose is to give students a direct experience with real life toy projects. Real life, because in those projects, several aspects from real systems are included. Toy because students do not have the time to really do the advanced design and testing a profesional project requires.
Nothing new... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's NO Synthesis going on here... (Score:1, Insightful)
There is NO synthesis in the video... it's all from prerecorded loops, that they probably didn't even make themselves.
IE. Pure gimmick!
Re:Sounds great (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:sigh. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but did you even go to the page? Did you watch the movie? It's frickin' rad!
Who cares if this is just another one of those MIT projects. This is a useful, fun, and ingenious toy! People (i.e. me) are giving this project attention because it's interesting and unique, not because it's from MIT. Please.
Actually, this is very new (Score:2, Insightful)
This instrument may be similar to the device you reference, however its novel and easy to manipulate interface will allow completely new sounds to be woven into compositions. I'd wager that an experienced artist could make music with this device that he couldn't do with any other instrument - but I'd need to read more about it first.
So to argue more directly with your point: The user interface would be the whole point if it actually helped the user achieve something in a more efficient fashion... but it doesn't do anything that doesn't already exist. The interface is the whole point and it does help the user either make music more efficiently, or to make completely new types of composition. I'd say both, but I expect you'd have to ask someone who's made music with it.
Re:The ideas in this aren't all that amazing (Score:3, Insightful)