ReacTable/MixiTUI
m_dejean
Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut. 2,946 Posts
Those of you who attended one of Bj??rk's shows on the "Volta" tour might already be familiar with the reacTable. The reacTable is "a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language".b,121b,121
b,121b,121b,121Yeah, it sounds nerdy, and it is. But it's also a pretty neat tool for electronic musicians to liven up their snoozy "just checking my email" laptop performances.b,121b,121A basic demonstration of the reacTable:b,121http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmcb,121http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27Eb,121b,121Real-world usage of the reacTable for the performance of "Pluto" by Bj??rk:b,121http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7QE5tHFwTgb,121b,121Anyway, as you can see from the demos, so far the reacTable has been used as a synth controller.b,121A friend of mine, a fellow student at the Copenhagen University Computer Science institute has been working on modifying it to be a sequencer controller (coupling it with Ableton Live, calling it MixiTui) as part of his masters thesis.b,121b,121Two weeks ago I attended the demonstration of the current state of his project, and it was a fun evening. Part of it was a spoken presentation/evaluation and part of it was a concert with a techno/electro/italo musician called The Mad System, switching between performing songs on his laptop and the reacTable for the purpose of letting the audience evaulutate which of the two approaches seemed more "live".b,121b,121It's still at an early development stage, but it's definitely got potential. Right now it basically functions as a giant MIDI mixer with the ability to switch between different Live sessions and MIDI parts/patterns within each session, but integrating the ability to add/remove/control FX is the next step he's working on. I don't know what other features he has planned.b,121b,121But the coolest thing is that he's built his reacTable with a grant from the institute, which means that it will belong to them in the future, making it available for further experimentation by other students (like me 
)b,121b,121Anyway, here's a short photo summary of the evening.b,121b,121Rock the auditorium.b,121
b,121b,121The Mad System bringing the um-tsi um-tsib,121
b,121b,121The audience gets a special touchy after the showb,121
b,121
b,121b,121Me trying to get a touchy toob,121
b,121b,121Kick-snare-kick-kick-snareb,121
b,121
b,121b,121b,121Yeah, it sounds nerdy, and it is. But it's also a pretty neat tool for electronic musicians to liven up their snoozy "just checking my email" laptop performances.b,121b,121A basic demonstration of the reacTable:b,121http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmcb,121http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27Eb,121b,121Real-world usage of the reacTable for the performance of "Pluto" by Bj??rk:b,121http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7QE5tHFwTgb,121b,121Anyway, as you can see from the demos, so far the reacTable has been used as a synth controller.b,121A friend of mine, a fellow student at the Copenhagen University Computer Science institute has been working on modifying it to be a sequencer controller (coupling it with Ableton Live, calling it MixiTui) as part of his masters thesis.b,121b,121Two weeks ago I attended the demonstration of the current state of his project, and it was a fun evening. Part of it was a spoken presentation/evaluation and part of it was a concert with a techno/electro/italo musician called The Mad System, switching between performing songs on his laptop and the reacTable for the purpose of letting the audience evaulutate which of the two approaches seemed more "live".b,121b,121It's still at an early development stage, but it's definitely got potential. Right now it basically functions as a giant MIDI mixer with the ability to switch between different Live sessions and MIDI parts/patterns within each session, but integrating the ability to add/remove/control FX is the next step he's working on. I don't know what other features he has planned.b,121b,121But the coolest thing is that he's built his reacTable with a grant from the institute, which means that it will belong to them in the future, making it available for further experimentation by other students (like me )b,121b,121Anyway, here's a short photo summary of the evening.b,121b,121Rock the auditorium.b,121b,121b,121The Mad System bringing the um-tsi um-tsib,121b,121b,121The audience gets a special touchy after the showb,121b,121b,121b,121Me trying to get a touchy toob,121b,121b,121Kick-snare-kick-kick-snareb,121b,121
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