One man band rocks the iPod touch, rescues the MIDI clarinet from obscurity
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted March 12th 2010 9:41PM
posted March 12th 2010 9:41PM
We've seen blow-hard electronic music makers in the past (one particular didgeridoo hack comes to mind) but still, when one makes us take note we feel like we just have to pass it along. Onyx Ashanti is an American living in Berlin and a one-man band to boot. His instrument of choice is a Yamaha MIDI wind controller for triggering audio and the TouchOSC app for iPod touch for controlling PureData audio processing. And the music he makes from the two is pretty, pretty wild... see for yourself after the break.
.....This is awesome.
@Gamecheater
Yeah, but whats with this ornage bowl in the background?
@Indyaner
His long coding hours.
Coders have to have something to eat....
Like Fritos. Or Tab and Mountain Dew.
@Gamecheater
Pretty sick, but looks like it might be a little fake. i'm skeptical.
I have a hard enough time orienting from potrait to landscape keyboard, let alone changing various pitches of tones on the fly...
@UnderPaidOrphan
Perhaps he increased the sensitivity of the accelerometer?
I'm pretty sure Apple doesn't want the iPhone to do something every time the axis slightly changes - That's what this is for.
Example - I can write a script to make my joystick function as a mouse, but when I move it on the X axis I need to know how far I want to move my joystick before it actually starts moving the mouse. Without touching the joystick - the x axis is 0. Move it to the left, and it goes all the way to 50. Move it to the right, and it moves to -50.
To compare this to the iPhone - The screen rotation would be like me setting the values to start moving my mouse cursor once the joystick goes past an x axis of 30 or below -30. That's the way the iPhone works - It doesn't immediately make changes, it has to notice a BIG change in the axis.
Now to compare what he did to my example. What he did would be like taking my joystick and writing a script to slowly move the mouse faster as I move my joystick 1 up or down on the x axis. It could even be used to play a specific note @ X axis 1, 2, 3, 0, -1, -2, -3, etc.
Too long; Didn't read version
The accelerometer is highly sensitive, the reason you don't notice it is because it's currently programmed for the screen rotation to only rotate once it hits a certain value.
@Gamecheater
Is that why games like Labyrinth are able to work on the iPhone?
@cstayfresh
Yes. The difference is the developer of labyrinth is actually tracking all accelerometer data and using it, rather than having the iPhone have a set variable to perform a function(If x/y axis goes past NUMBER, then rotate screen to Portrait/Landscape.)
@UnderPaidOrphan
Yeah.. right around 1:16 he makes this wild flying movement with the touch, and it appears to have no effect...
@Gamecheater Band Geek Hero!
@Indyaner Leaky roof.
Who knew Kraftwerk were holding auditions?
Damn. Why cant all Ipod Touchs do that...
Meh. Go back to your drum circle, electro-hippy.
sounds like a really bad main menu background noise for a game for the PS2. I know.. that was out there.
Ill admitt at first i thought wth is this guy smoking, i want some ! But hes actually pretty dam good, and i enjoyed watching that immensely . Could totally make a show out of this and make money.
Only one thought.
as interesting as it is to watch, it seems there's easier ways to slap together a few drum samples and a techno beat... even with pitch changes
I was going to say it was awesome but I didn't see him move
his fingers at all when playing the clarinet thing. It seems half fake.
I've got 24+ traditional Irish musical instrument (Uilleann pipes, Anglo and English concertina, button accordion, etc.) emulation apps on the store, its amazing what you can do on the platform. Check them out at:
http://www.tradlessons.com
First, this isn't a "clarinet" - it's a Yamaha WX5 which is much more similar to a sax or flute in fingering than it is to a clarinet.
Second, he's not playing the darned instrument at all. You have to move your fingers! Near as I can tell from the video, he's only using the breath controller.
Seems to me that he's got the equivalent of two or perhaps three dials here - one breath control, and an x-y from tilting his little device on his wrist. A $50 Korg Nanokontrol would give you 18 such controllers and you could control at least eight of them at one time...
I don't really understand what's going on....but I know it's cool.
The music is obviously inspired by the sound of the dripping water from his leaking roof collected in the orange bucket behind his setup!
@Marko
:) +1 for a chuckle .
@Marko
And -1 for that picture... *shudders*
He just seems to be using breath to switch some drum loops on and off. Then using hand movements to tweak eq. Looks like a lot of trouble for nothing - he could just use his mouse / touch pad and achieve the same result.
I've got an old toaster somewhere I could batter until it was wedge shaped to use as a doorstop. Oh...I know! I'll use this doorstop instead.
let me just say that i am strangely excited and honored to me called a fake on Engadget! I read this blog daily and to be told that what iam doing looks fake means i'm doing it well...but it would be a mistaken conclusion.
in general, the iphone has a tri axis accelerometer that sends x(left/right), y(forward/back) and z(from 90degrees to upside down).touchOSC interprets each axis and sends it to pure data. the creation argument for its OSC object is /accxyz. the data is really shaky and unstable so some parameters dont "latch"well. for instance, when i make that "flick" motion with my hand (the thing mentioned at 1:16), i am using the furthest extreme of the z axis as a switch to turn on/off an effect,so i had to delay that data to make it not read the 3 or 4 signals it gets in the short time its at that extreme. any non-interpreted wild fingermovements are bad programming, not subterfuge (i can show you the Pd patch to prove it).
why am i telling you this?! so you will know that i'm not full of shit and that all i did is interpret raw acceleromter data and map it to filter cuttoff and resonance. i used to iphone because (a) it was there and (b) in a club it is wireless and does the job so i dont have to play with the laptop mouse all night. nothing gets a crowd going more than tweaking filters out of thin air.
and lastly, i am most definitely not triggering loops. i am creating loops. i created a style of music called beatjazz and it is a blend of live looping, sound design and jazz improvisation. here is a simplified demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWRBopM-og4( and my iphone attached to my arm instead of my hand back in the stone age of sept 2009)
cheers all. and thanks for taking the time to peep the video. being called fake here, to me, means i'm doing something right! thanks!
onyx
http://onyxashanti.bandcamp.com/album/the-nomadic-diary-of-onyx-ashanti-recursive-artifacts-vol-1 (all improv/allbeatjazz)
http://www.youtube.com/onyxashanti (visual proof)
@onyxashanti
Fucking awesome, music sounds like Baris Manco. I like it.
I've found some good lyrics to go with Onyx's music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
pd, good for you! (And good for you commenting here.)
If you're interested in this sort of thing, try http://infusionsystems.com/catalog/ (disclaimer: I only know what iv'e read on their website and have no involvement with them) - you wouldn't have to have any visible sensors and do exactly what you're doing now, and they're pretty cheap (their most basic system is less than $100, though I don't think it's quite enough for what you're doing, and you can buy sensors one at a time...)
So you could do what you're doing now - with no visible controller at all! How cool is that?
Regarding the music - it's rather a lot straighter than what I like, which is probably good; but the production and sound of your beats leaves them not-punchy and that's not as good.
The drum sounds themselves are somewhat dated and also not rich enough - you should be thinking in terms of internal modulation for the sounds to give them more richness. They need more punch, which you can do with EQ and perhaps some compression - that's really the most significant tip I can give you... and you could do with a little more "stuff" in your drum lines perhaps (though who knows how it'd sound if you EQ'ed it sweetly?)
Heh, hope you take this all in good spirits, it doesn't mean I disapprove. Heck, you should see the comments I make about my own material, it is to weep!
(Send me offline if you like to tom (at) swirly (dot) com.)
You just can't beat ingenuity and music together. While the music may not be someone else's flavor, the melding of technology and musical artistry can alone in itself be a wondrous piece of entertainment.
this should be tagged apple >:|
I saw Onyx in San Jose once and bought a CD. He's pretty awesome.