Kinect Used as MIDI Controller for Synths, Makes me Want a Kinect
Kinect has been hacked to manipulate lots of things since being launched. From virtual keyboards to RTS PC games. Music production isn’t an exception, I’m pleased to say.
Some clever folks have managed to link Microsoft’s camera-based controller to electronic synthesisers, effectively making a controller which you can manipulate with your hands.
This sort of thing was started almost as soon as the Kinect came out, but the scope it has for music production is pretty impressive. The videos you can see below show off the workings, and you can see how each axis works to modulate the sound in a different way.
While all still a bit shaky, with some time Kinect could be used to control software suites such as Ableton Live in very tactile and easy to understand ways. You push up to increase the pitch or simply hit the air in front of you to get a kick drum, for example. This is kind of similar to what theremins can do, expect they’re controlled by radio frequency.
For live music production this could be very useful. Being able to change a sound or fad in tracks just by swishing your hand would not just be cool but practical, especially if they can one day get these cameras small enough to fit into the bezel of your laptop screen (and just imagine that).
While the games might be a bit useless, it’s stuff like this that makes me really impressed by Microsoft’s tech, even if they didn’t envisage this kind of use. Hopefully when they start releasing PC drivers there will be more experimentation of this calibre, as well as some official implementations.
Check out the videos if you’re interested.
Video one:
Video two:
Video three:
I want Kinect, but for all the things that Microsoft didn’t do with it. Making music, playing large-scale RTS games with your hands and maybe if we’re lucky a hack that will let you play around with a Minority Report-style interface are things I would buy a Kinect for.