Noteput music table plays the notes as you lay them down (video)

Finally we get the chance to literally lay a track down. The Noteput interactive music table was concocted by a pair of German design students back in October of last year, but watching it in action is still a mesmerizing experience. Employing a simple camera beneath the surface, the table can tell what notes you're placing upon it and play them back -- individually when you position them or as a group once you hit the big play button. The coolest feature for us is the ability to loop playback and replace notes on the fly. It's like being a really old school kind of a DJ. Click past the break to see what we mean.

[Elaith Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:18AM]

Can it do key signatures?

[tonicboy Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:42AM]

@Elaith
I can't see why not. In theory, anything that can be notated should be able to be recognized. Of course that doesn't mean that this specific version can, as it's just a proof-of-concept.

[JQuB3 Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:20AM]

This is like a retro Fruity Loop. Really cool!

[camroncake Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:22AM]

For some reason, I WANT this

[ThomasK Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:29AM]

it would be a great educative tool for children

[CapnShiner Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:36AM]

They need to increase the resolution and scale this so that one can fit more notes on the screen. I think this is an ingenious concept but there is definitely room for further development. I would be very interested to see where this goes.

[tonicboy Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:40AM]

Wouldn't be better and more easily upgraded if it was just a multi-touch table a la Surface? Then, as a bonus, the software could be distributed for people who can't afford the hardware, for example as software for slate tablets.

[iroydude Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:40AM]

would do well in other places as well.. such as music therapy.

[guroth Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:48AM]

Pretty cool, but the real limiting factor here is that you're using predefined note duration pieces. Since this device currently only plays one bar at a time this is not much of an issue, but if you were to scale this to a more useful size then you would suddenly need to have dozens if not hundreds of each note duration piece.

In 10-20 years though, when the technology gets cheap enough, perhaps kids will play with these the hundreds of note pieces will go the way of the lego, and parents will complain about stepping on notes or notes getting stuck in the vacuum cleaner.

[kiyu727 Posted Feb 18th 2010 7:46AM]

@guroth
you have to think a step further.
IF they want to sell it, they would use the concept and go for multitouch screen so you wouldnt have to use physical notes (the dot with the arm, whatever its called in english ...) but could drag and drop the notes from virtual "boxes" with infinet notes.
therefor you can scale the size by the software.
As the whole thing evolves, you can make it save some parts so you can go on with the songor even better, its like a book, so you can flip through pages.
Uuh, would make a nice app for iPad/ADAM ....
I gotta find a copyright sign .. lol

[kiyu727 Posted Feb 18th 2010 7:46AM]

@kiyu727
infinite*

[Elitedavo Posted Feb 18th 2010 4:57AM]

H? they found a new note.. must sound a bit like B by the look of it tho

[onlymyrailgun Posted Feb 18th 2010 5:03AM]

@Elitedavo
It's a German invention, so yeah, B is replaced by H on the scale.

[AlienSix Posted Feb 18th 2010 5:08AM]

Microsoft Surface possibly anyone?

[Buzz Posted Feb 18th 2010 6:35AM]

Call me grumpy in the morning, or hard to impress, but seriously, how exactly is this impressive or news worthy in any way? yes, Microsoft Surface and lots of other similar interfaces we've been seeing demos for the past couple of years at least! What is the point of having giant notes on a huge-butt table ? c'mon people...come up with smth, don't just sugarcoat it! Proof of concept? Please, give me a break, it recognizes shapes on a surface, big deal! the rest of it is just a minimal midi/mod composer. There have been demos of Java apps for feature phones with cameras that do object/pattern recognition. what exactly does this bring new? a whooping maximum 8 note score program with the amazing function of "play" ?!

[Memetic Posted Feb 18th 2010 7:07AM]

It will be more useful, expendable and cheaper, if they use projector and video camera above table facing downward.

[Heliosphan Posted Feb 18th 2010 7:41AM]

Not bad. But I'm with some other commentards - either reduce the size of the physical notes so you can make decent lengthy multi-line compositions, or do away with them enirely in favour of software draggable notes. That way you wont run out of notes to put on the stave.
I'm thinking too, that the system is all about simplicity, thats why I'm seeing no instrument/patch change settings, or a way of accessing other audio parameters.
Also, anybody notice the distinct lack of rests, or sharp notes? I couldn't help be disappointed by the fact that the minim (half note) only had a piece of paper indicating its a hollow oval, but thats just me.
I'm wagering it's still WiP then? Or maybe a non-practical art exhibition? Either way I'd love to see this evolve into a decent musical production system.

[Rohan Posted Feb 18th 2010 9:08AM]

Love the tetris theme! This tech looks in its baby stages though... I wonder how hard it would be to add stemless notes in-line with other notes to create polyphony! Could be a seriously fun way to muck about with music.

[DrBlaze Posted Feb 18th 2010 10:16AM]

Wife: Hon, did you get the stuff from the super as I asked you to?
Husband: Even better! a table that can play notes!

[decypherSMC Posted Feb 18th 2010 10:47AM]

so what happens if there are too many notes for a 4/4 bar? do the extra notes get put in red?

[JustThatNerdyGuy Posted Feb 18th 2010 11:45AM]

That would be brilliant for Music Lessons...

[Intel Posted Feb 18th 2010 6:27PM]

Tetris!