Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Wii remote midi drums on ableton live

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Wii remote midi drums on ableton live



    Hi all, just downloaded the trial software, and absolutely loving the potential for it. Really excited at the prospect of compatibility with motion plus as well. Needless to say i will definitely be making a purchase when i get paid.


    So far i have managed to map the controls to work with several emulators (aside from some joystick issues with the nunchuck on some cider games) and i have used the preset midi samples to work with ableton live, as well as mapping different buttons to seperate drum notes.


    However my knowledge of the more technical aspects of this software is quite limited, and i fear that my idea is too ambitious for its capabilites. What i want to do is assign the pitch motion to playing a midi note, but make it play a different note depending on what buttons are being pressed on the remote. For example, a shake of the wiimote would produce a snare hit, doing the same while holding A would produce a bass pedal hit etc. Similarly, the nunchuck on its own would hit an open hi-hat, holding Z would hit a closed hi-hat, and holding c would hit a ride or snare.


    Is it possible to do this yet or am i living in cloud cuckoo land? Any help would be much appreciated.


    P.S. my thoughts on motion plus would be to use the extra sensitivity to detect pitch hits for standard drum hits, and yaw hits for rimshots etc.


  • #2


    Hi Bob,


    You can definitely do that, but it's not totally straightforward.


    However, there two things to know before:

    1. If you want to trigger a note based on a Wiimote shake, it's better to use the "accel" parameter rather than pitch. Pitch is really giving you pitch orientation, which would not be suited to your needs in that case.

    2. The motion plus support currently helps you get a more precise measure of the angle, so for everything that is motion based (excuse the pun), it's better to use the accelerations.


    To assign a different note depending on the status of a button being pressed you can do the following:

    - Select the message that will trigger the note, based on what I just said it would be the fourth parameter of /pry: "accel". Duplicate that message for as many different notes you want, and assign the MIDI notes you want to play with that.

    - For each message, uncheck the "enable" checkbox. The enable checkbox will be turned on for only one line at a time, so we want to start with everything off by default.

    - Now say you want to trigger a note with button A, assign a "Latched Combine" message to that button, and as Value, choose the message that is actually the corresponding duplicate you just made. This would be "/wii/1/accel/pry [3: accel]".

    - Choose another button and do the same for each remaining notes you want to trigger.


    It's important to note that you may want to experiment with different scaling values for the accel parameter in order to have a good trigger. The scaling page can be accessed from the View menu. It's always convenient to use Quick Look window in order to see the actual signal and make according changes. For you information, the trigger happens when the signal value crosses 0.5 upwards.


    If you need more info, don't hesitate to ask.

    It seems like it would be a nice tutorial to make, I should think about this :-)


    Best,

    Cam

    Comment


    • #3


      cheers for the help. got it working in like five minutes after that explanation (and ready for band practice as well)


      This software is awesome! It does exactly what i want it to do, and from my initial testing with it, i can tell it opens up a whole new way to play music live. I have seen a couple of DJ's use it for basic midi cc's, but this adds so many more possibilities. i've got a gig coming up in a couple of weeks to test the drumming capabilites with, will keep you updated on how it goes. and if it goes well, i may be embarking on a much more ambitious performance in the near future .....which brings me onto my first question:


      If i purchase a license, will i be able to use it for more than one mac? Or will i have to get a new license for each machine? (and if the latter is true, do i get any discount for inspiration? :P)


      My second question is a technical one. When i hit a note, it only plays for as long as im holding the corresponding button and as long as the wiimote is still moving. Is there a way to make sure the whole beat/note/sample is played even if the button is released or the wiimote is motion-less?

      Comment


      • #4


        Hey bob,


        Happy to hear that you have this all working!


        The license terms specify that you have to buy one license per computer. The floating price range is already very flexible, so I am not making discounts under 10 purchases, you just have to choose the price you want to offer. Sorry!


        As for your last question: if the notes are too short, you can maybe try to give a higher decay time to the instrument you are controlling, or you could use a MIDI plugin that will ensure a minimum duration for a note. Live and Logic both have these features. You can't yet adjust the minimum length of a note inside OSCulator.


        Cheers!

        Camille

        Comment

        Working...
        X