This is somewhat off my regular topic of .net programming, but still damn geeky: using the Nintendo Wii’s remote as a virtual percussion instrument. I’m not talking about banging it around as a drum stick! Read on and I’ll explain..
I was one of the lucky ones to score a new Nintendo Wii a week after it came out, and have been currently wasting too many evenings on Need For Speed Carbon of late (wii-mote as steering wheel rocks). The wii-mote is truly a lovely piece of hardware that demands to be assimilated to other uses. Hacker-bees over at wiili.org are working away on this as we speak. Since it uses standard bluetooth to communicate, it’s entirely possible to use it on windows as an infrared mouse pointer, as a system to transfer your miis, or as a midi drum machine.
I’m particularly interested in the idea of the wiimote as a controller for audio software, much like the link for the midi drum machine above. In my ’spare’ time (hah), I’ve been playing around with Ableton Live, audio software that allows you to do live sampling and looping. My end goal here is to supplement my band’s live performances with some tasteful instrument looping and ambient samples. I run my bass and a microphone through this software and can build up whole compositions in real time using loops (or at least that’s what I’m working towards mastering).
At some point I’d like to be able to use my wiimotes in this sort of live music performance venue. One problem with looping percussion instruments on stage is that the mic picks up background noise and degrades the quality. Using the wiimote as a shaker or virtual drumstick would allow you to avoid that ambient noise buildup, and still have the performance quality that crouching over your laptop on stage doesn’t convey.
The link for the wii drum machine above isn’t quite there: he’s just mapping buttons to certain drum samples, but he isn’t taking into account the velocity of the movement of the wiimote. Midi is not only an on/off signal, but also allows for ‘velocity’. That’s how an expensive electric piano will respond with different volume depending on how hard you strike the keys. Without taking into account the velocity of movement, you aren’t going to be able to duplicate realistic percussion.
Check out this video of someone actually using his wiimote as a controller for Ableton live. This is really close to what I’m talking about, although he doesn’t provide any information on his approach. Note how by twisting and tilting the wiimote, he is shifting around the settings on an audio effect filter to make that modulation sound.
I actually have a usb gamepad hooked up to my laptop and have been using it as a controller for Ableton Live already. It works great, and running at $35 it is both way cheaper than dedicated midi controllers and has bonus novelty effect. I’m using a combination of Rejoice and MIDI Yoke for this (let me know if you would like more information on how that is done).
Unfortunately, it’s going to take some more time for me to get my Wiimote working: first I need to get a bluetooth adapter for my laptop! I’m sure by the time I do that, those wiili hacker-bees will have figured it all out.
On a related topic, someone has also done a great job making the Nintendo DS into a wireless midi controller, although it requires some hard-to-find hardware to hack homebrew on to it. Check out the video on that page where he uses it as a virtual keyboard, and how he can ‘bend’ notes like a guitar.
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