Reactable Electro-Acoustic Tabletop Music Synthesizer
Reactable is a multi-user electro-acoustic music synthesizer with a unique tabletop interface. Performers (like maybe you) control the instrument by placing objects on the table and moving them around. Check out the demo below, and turn your sound up a little.
The Reactable hardware starts with the translucent round table; a camera under the table captures the user actions. This visual data is analyzed; the nature, position and orientation of the objects on the table are assigned elements of a classic modular synthesizer.
Equally cool (I think) is the projector under the Reactable table, that draws dynamic animations on the surface to provide visual feedback.
This awesome bar entertainment device is brought to you by a team of "digital luthiers" under the direction of Dr. Sergi Jordą (in case you forgot, a 'luthier' is a person who makes stringed instruments like guitars). The "Interactive Sonic Systems" team is working in the Music Technology Group within the Audiovisual Institute at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona Spain.
If your circuits are not totally overloaded by this device, take a look at these other unique musical developments:
MusicPad Pro: Digital Sheet Music File Player
You can store your entire music library on this device, using digital sheet music brought in from music composition programs and even scanned sheet music files.
Miuro Autonomous Music Robot
Rather than outfitting your house with speakers in every room, why not have a stereo that follows you around?
This device reminded me strongly of another art project - the loopqoob three element music synthesizer.
Found Reactable on SciFi.com; don't forget the Reactable website.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/8/2006)
Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'- Ray Bradbury, 1953.
A Big Collection Of Small Books
'Black, oblong, no larger than the end of Paul's thumb... It's a very old Orange Catholic Bible made for space travelers.'- Frank Herbert, 1965.
Elon Musk's Debt To Science Fiction Books
A marvelous vision of a national fleet of electric phaetons that would truly revolutionize motor transport. And private space craft.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'