BlockDJ by VeBu

Finally, our sound device, BlockDJ, is complete and ready for our hand-in and presentation tomorrow morning. Above is the press release we have made. Just click on it to view full size.

As well as the press release we have created two more videos. The first link is the shortened demo which is the video which will also go towards part of our grade. The second link is the extended version. I would have liked to have done a better set using the blocks on the videos, however we have not had enough time to master any techniques or skills using our device, we've spent too much time making it! Maybe we'll post another video later after having time to play with them more and make more samples.

Here are the links....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXNDky2-PIk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H-7JGBC6Mw <

We didn't expect our device to turn out this effective but it seemed as if once one thing went right in the making of it we felt as if we had to make everything else work, and it did. We are both proud of our creation, BlockDJ.

Thanks to those who have read the blog. We will post another blog reflecting on our feedback and grade for this project.

Contextual shot

Just a quick post to show a picture of our product being used.

Almost There

Lots of good images for you to catch up on since our last post. Lots of satisfying progression has been made. The blocks have been built, painted, sanded and lazer cut. The electronics have been secured and the coding has been changed until it was exactly the way we want it. Not much left to worry about now except making a press release (which we will post), preparing our presentation and making a demo video of our product.

The work we done over the last 4 months has been very up and down with all the changes that have been made, but the last couple of weeks has been fun, educational and inspirational for Robbie and I. We are both looking forward to the completion and presentation of our sound device.

Hopefully our next post should be of the completed product unless something goes horribly wrong.

A Satisfying Development

Here you go. The new shape for our dj blocks. After a long time of pondering we decided on this slightly changed shape with big differences. It is made of the original cubes but it now has half on one of the faces angled and the following edge has been rounded. This makes it a lot more fun to play with and really feels like a piece of djing hardware. I'll explain that in a minute. First here's a new rationale to match our new blocks and our tilt concept.....

BlockDJ

Four cube-like blocks with an angled face and one rounded

edge, used for mixing samples together. Each block has one

assigned sample and is activated by a tilt switch. Rock the block

back on forward on the angled face to switch the sample on and

off or roll the block over its rounded edge onto the next flat face

for continuous looping of the sample.

Create a new mix every time with these hands-on and intuitive

sample blocks.

Ok, so why is this new design better? First of all the blocks no longer have to be picked up. Just rock and roll them on a flat surface (no pun intended, really). Now the samples can be triggered and paused quickly and easily with use of the angled face. This feels brilliant because it has a crossfader feel to it, like cutting a track, amazing. And then when you roll the block over to the continuous looping flat face it really feels like your throwing a track right into your set. After the developments over the last week i am really starting to become proud of this device as i'm sure Robbie is too. I hope I get a chance to use this in a club or event because, as I said earlier, its starting to really feel like a piece of djing equipment.

Tilt Switches

Yay! The tilt switches arrived a couple of days ago and Robbie and I tested them with the rest of the electronics then temporarily fitted them in our recently constructed cubes. They seem to be working reasonably well but still need a lot of tweaking as they are quite temperamental. Hopefully some adjustments on the code will do the trick.

As far as the cubes go, They are intact as I just mentioned, except for the lids, but they still need finishing. So we've had a play about on the lazer cutter to see about getting VeBu cut into the surfaces of the cubes, still not sure about it yet. As well as this it also needs painted and sanded and to get the tilt switches mounted inside properly.

However, after a talk with our lecturer we agreed that we should look further into the shape of our blocks. Why are they cubes? What are the alternatives? Something just doesn't feel right about them just now. They are not as fun and intuitive to control as we had hoped. And just when things seemed to be going well......

Electronic Prototype

Fortunately we have managed to make a lot of progress in the last few days. After a bit of help from our lecturer, we have wrote the PICAXE coding that gives the exact electronic effect that we had hoped for our device. This means when a switch is activated it only plays the sample when in contact and stops when disconnected. Due to this development we were able to quick construct this Electronic Prototype (above) that will hopefully give everyone a fair impression of our aims for the dj cubes. The prototype is basically using most of the technology we will be using for our final product except this has no tilt switches or cubes.

Also, here's a link to a video of the prototype in use

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex1nExac-1A

Samples done

After trying lots of different methods that were not working or were not worth the effort I finally got some samples made for our sample cubes. After finally working out how to do it, I've made three sets of three samples, all are around 120bpm and all are very housey sounding. The process of creating them was quite long but I soon got into the routine of it.

Samples where made mostly on GarageBand (I would rather have used Reason but I can't afford it). After selecting the tempo and noise of the sample I then turned it into a loop and used converting software to turn it into WAV format. Next I used Audacity to make slight tempo and length adjustments to each sample so that they would all match and loop perfectly. Each set of three samples consists of a bassline loop, a beat loop and a melody loop. Each set of samples can be mixed smoothly with all the other samples I've created

I've been playing around with our new samples on our Puredata patch using only Puredata (no hardware or PICAXE). The samples seem to be working perfectly and should go very well with or cubes.

A new concept

After our extremely beneficial visit from FOUND and King Creosote we had our idea ripped away from us and replaced with something far better which Robbie and I have refined and started work on. Here's a brief explanation of our new concept.....

The hardware consists of four wooden cubes which we have almost finished constructing. Inside each cube will be a tilt switch. This will be used to activate a sample assigned to each cube. The tilt switches will be wired to our microcontroller and then to the mac. The software running on the computer will be PICAXE which will be triggering the sample on Puredata. So basically, turn the cubes to triggered looping samples.

So far we have almost built cubes and our Puredate coding. The coding was sent to us by Paul, an Interactive Media Design graduate who is very experienced with Max/MSP. As far as we are aware it is about 6 panels on which samples can be loaded and triggered by the activation of buttons. We will probably need to make small tweaks so it is more compatible with our device.

Here's what we need to do; finish our four cubes; receive our tilt switches and cables which we have just ordered; wire them up; write our PICAXE coding so that it will trigger samples on Puredata when signals are received from the tilt switches; and finally I will start making samples for our cubes to play.

Our helpful visitors

A couple of days ago we had a some visitors to our studio to share some knowledge and give some tips. Two members from the Fife band FOUND of Fence Records and founder of Fence Records, King Creosote, were our helpful visitors.

After a lecture and Q&A session with FOUND, where they told us many useful pieces of info and shared lots of stories with us about the creation of Cybraphon (search it, it's amazing!), we got down to work on our devices as our vistors walked round each of the groups in our studio examining the projects and sharing their opinions. They seemed to be quite impressed with everyones work so far but also had lots of tips to give, which isn't a bad thing.

After speaking to two of the members of FOUND and King Creosote, Robbie and I had our whole concept completely ripped apart, chewed up and spat out, only to be left feeling extremely inspired and ready for some real work. The only problem was sorting out all of our new ideas and hopes for our sound device. I'll post again in a couple of days with when we have refined our brand new concept........intense.

Problems, problems, problems.....

As I said in our technical prototype post, i would follow up on the button problem. The buttons where not working as we would like, technically or electronically. For certain functions of our sound device to work we needed two buttons to be pressed at the same time. It seemed quite difficult to press them at the same time and also the software was having problems with recognising it.

To solve this we decided we would incorporate reed switches and magnets into the cubes. This meant that when the reed switch in one box came close to the magnet of another box, the sample or sound would be triggered. So we got our reed switches ordered, received and rigged up in a way to test this. It seemed to be working slightly better than the buttons at first glance but then we realised an even bigger problem.

Our new worry was that when the reed switches and magnets were in contact, instead of being recognised by the software (picaxe and puredata) once, it was being recognised about 10 times a second. This meant that, whenever we got out samples created, they would be starting and stopping 10 times a second!

Obviously we still have a lot of work to do....

Inspiration

This is just a quick post to drop some links that we found inspirational towards our progress on our device.

We do not hope for our device to be any where near as impressive as these. But have a look anyway.

Reactable 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc

Reactable 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27E&feature=related

Nike Music Shoe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS1exujG3cY&feature=player_embedded

Let me know if anyone else finds any cool sound devices.

Technical Prototype

The software combination of picAXE and Pure Data is not an enjoyable one, certainly not at this point. We have it all set up and developed to a suitable stage at this point, but it seems every time the software is left unused for a couple of days it falls out with us and refuses to cooperate. Luckily, cardboard doesn't get moody so our prototype could be mocked up relatively quickly. With the prototype finished, problems of the buttons not working correctly and software problems in recognising 2 buttons operating at once became apparent. To solve these problems, the buttons are going to be replaced with a reed switch and magnet combination. More on this in the future.

The aesthetics of the boxes are now being thought about in more depth than before. We have decided to design the main control boxes to represent the type of music they will be programmed to play, i.e Hip Hop will involve a lot of gold and bling, Electro will involve bright colours and lights. Designing the boxes around certain music genres will create an added depth for the user and an element of intuition into using the product.

The Chosen One

So we have finally narrowed our 100(ish) ideas down to one. One idea that we believe will match our brief and our insight. We are looking forward to making it even though we don't know how it will all be done. Here is a brief rationale which we hope will explain our idea sufficiently.

A master cube with multiple functions. Play different

samples or use as an equaliser by simply stacking the

master cube and two auxiliary cubes in different

combinations. The sample playing, or wave range playing,

will depend on what position the master cube is placed in

the stack. This gives a very hands on and intuitive way of

manipulating music.

More than one set of cubes can be used at a time. This

means tracks can easily be mixed together.

We will now get started on a technical sketch prototype and get our heads around the electronics of our idea. Our next post should explain our idea further for anyone who doesn't get it yet.

Insight

After analysing the 10 ideas which we have narrowed down to, there is clear theme running through them which I briefly mentioned in the last post. Each of our remaining contestants seems to revolve around DJing, and perhaps more importantly, DJing from a physical perspective. Based on this we have been able to come up with an insight on which we can question, develop and eliminate our remaining ideas down to one concept which we will further develop and make. Here is our insight.....

DJing is becoming more and more software based and

relying on computers to do the work. This can often

detract from the performance. DJing is more impressive

to watch, listen to and do, when it involves the

physical handling of an object or objects.

Narrowing our ideas down

Here's a brief summary of what has been achieved since our last posting.

On the idea generation front the 100 ideas required was almost met (a more difficult task for our group being a man down on the rest of the other groups bar one) with about 40 ideas being generated each and being presented in a laser cut ring bound book. The next stage in the process was to cut down the total ideas to about 10 which was a fairly easy process as a lot of the ideas, we decided, were technically impossible, or at least improbable. The ideas which we agreed to take forward were mostly based on DJ software so this is the direction we took especially since DJing and music manipulation is something we are both quite passionate about. Based on the 10 ten ideas we have narrowed done to for closer analysis, we have decided it would be beneficial to start learning how to use Pure Data.

Pure Data (PD) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. So far it seems quite tricky but also extremely interesting. We have created some basic things on it such as a metronome with a BPM counter and also a very, VERY simple sequencer using an oscillator. Luckily there are lots of helpful tutorial videos available and strong pure data communities.

Idea Generation

As expected, coming up with 100 sound device ideas is really putting our creative minds to the test but it is an extremely useful habit to get into in the world of design. Some designers believe that your best idea will be one of your first concepts but it never hurts to squeeze out another 97. As students of design it is a great way to develop your imaginative skills and also helps immensely with generating insights about your brief and also later on in the process when perhaps developing a possible solution(s). More ideas may give birth to even more ideas through rip&mix. Long way to go and a short time to get there. We will post again on the completion of our 100 ideas.

Playing with PICAXE

Ok, so we've had a bit of a play with our PICAXE gear, trying to familiarise ourselves with the basics and so on. Just some relatively simple things such as LED's linking to the chip and programmed to show different sequences. Also played around a bit more with our homemade mp3 player and got it to change between 3 tracks. We're looking forward to learning more about PICAXE as we can see it playing a big roll in whatever our sound device turns out to be. We will have a quick play around with using and programming different switches with our microcontroller then we really need to get started on generating 100 ideas for our device. A strenuous task but it really gets your brain into gear.

Early bread board circuitary

This is the first stage of making our sound machine although we don't know what it is going to be yet. This is basically a home made mp3 player. Just not figured out how to change the volume or change the track yet. It is programmed using a PICAXE 28x1 microcontroller and software, which we are completely new to. We will continue educating ourselves on this front and post soon.

BRIEF

• Create a meaningful interaction between a digital input and a analogue output or vis versa.
• This could be an object playing along to a specific track or music that is created depending on it's on surroundings.
• This module is out to test your deisgn and technical abilities, there is no strong user requirement.
• Think about the aesthetics of object, although is also this is a very "techy" module it is nice to show an honest technical aesthetic.
• Do you want to hide away the workings of your object or do you want to have them on show? Maybe take reference from old automated music machines such as the player piano or the musical box.