We’ve all see Wii-motes being used for all sort of strange purposes, well this one is useful.
A bunch of students at University of Potsdam, Germany have written a programme that lets you use your Wiimote and nunchuck to trigger sounds, such as drums and cymbals on a Mac. It’s not just drums that can be triggered, but any MIDI sound.
The accelerometer in the Wii-mote senses how hard the drums are being played, varying the loudness and harshness of the sound. It’s wire-free as it uses Bluetooth to connect.
It’s Open Source!
Here’s another great thing about it. The software is open source, so you’re able to download it and get it working on your Mac or Linux box.
I met one of the team at IFA this year, who gave me a chat over the functions and gave me a demo.
[audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/wiinstrument-drumming.mp3]Since I met the bods, they’ve released a new version (0.2), which is currently only available as a Mac Universal binary.
The software lets you map what every MIDI sound you like to the. Pressing the various button on the Wii-mote lets you have different sounds triggered.
Heck, you can even use it to drum straight into GarageBand.
In the video you’ll see the drums being used (there’s no delay in real-life when you use it) and about half way through he changes the controllers to be a cymbals.
The project site is at ScreenFashion