The general problem with drumming simulators

The ability to perform complex drumming patterns and generating quality beats with everyday objects and drum sticks. No technology at all.

Tony on Wii-D-VJ

Novice on Wii-D-VJ

GlovePIE Wii Drums Testing

I was finally able to arrange a testing session with Tony, a very good drummer. We worked on my project for a few hours calibrating, changing, editing, stripping and simplifying my code. It was realised that I originally attempted to allow for too many drum sounds, and because of movement and sensitivity issues the output sound was poor, and contained errors. There is a massive difference between the video at the start of the day and the video from the end. The button nun-chuks works fine for the foot actions, but the general weight, shape, feeling and lack of tactile response results in a sore wrist after short periods of use.

 

 

 

 

Sods Law

With the deadline closing I’m becoming increasingly concerned about the fact that I feel slightly lost. After working on my project all day after my meeting I did not really need to see this youtube video, as it does everything I originally wanted to do, but so much better. My project purpose is now under going a serious rethink. Tick, tock, tick, tock…..

Fork in the road with 9 days left…….

After seeing my project tutor today its clear that my project needs some serious improvements or changes in fully accomplish what I original set out to do, which was to use to Wii controllers to allow the user to learning how to play the drums.

Unfortunately, my project which uses mainly uses GlovePIE seems to lag slightly for the midi response output sound. Due to the project being heavily reliant on timing, this is a major problem.

I can basically sacrifice another day into researching if I can accomplish my task using WiiFlash. I’ve already looked at it, but choose GlovePIE due to quick progress and familiarity.

Fingers crossed now, time is short…..

A Solution!!!

I realised that I would get much better results from turning the Wii nun-chuk upside down and using the Z button..

Wii Nun-chuk Problem

I’ve realised that my nun-chuk on the foot idea hasn’t worked as well as I would have liked…..

Then there was 16 days……

So with 16days left till my final year project presentation, I’m surprisingling confident. 3 option were open to me for building my Wii-learning drum kit:

MaxMSP

WiiFlash

GlovePie

After a lots of trial and error testing I had decided to use glovePie. Its easily programmable, highly distributable and reliable.

I’ve currently programmed my application for the gesture recognition of the drum strokes, I still need more accurate midi sounds, and arrangment advice from an actual drummer. Sucessfully attached the nun-chucks to the feet(toe end).

Update

Sticking to using the Wii controller for my final sound project and final year project I have discovered that:

 I have 3 means available for allowing my 2 Wii controllers to communicate with Flash.

 FlashServer (allows bidirectional communication between MaxMSP and Flash)

http://www.nullmedium.de/dev/flashserver/

 Wii Remote API (flash api)

http://labs.wiicade.com/remote/docs.html

Glove Pie and FWiidom

http://www.fwiidom.org/?page_id=10

At the moment

MaxMSP allows both controllers to be paired but the flashserver software is currently not installed on the university mac labs.  (MAC)

My PC at home does not pair the devices for MaxMSP

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The Flash API works on my PC and MAC laptop, however I’ve currently only been able to connect 1 Wii controller, and the data transfer rate seems poor. Also only half of the buttons are mapped correctly.

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Glove Pie and FWiidom does work on my PC at home, but again currently with only 1 controller, and with poor transfer rate. At least all the buttons are mapped.