P5 as a MIDI controller - first impression

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Motivated by the reference to the Gypsi controller, I decided to use the
christmas holidays for some experiments with my P5.

For those among you who do not know the P5: it's a data glove which
consists of the glove itself and a stationary sensor unit to which the
glove is connected with a cable. The sensor unit interfaces to the
computer (or whatever) via USB1.1

The system tracks the position and angle of the glove, giving you a
total of six sensor informations. Plus, you get five more for the finger
bending angles, and four buttons on the top of the glove (to be operated
by the other hand), one of which is hardwired as an on/off button. The
glove is only available as a right-hand model and can be found for
'round $20 new.

There are drivers which convert the glove sensor data into MIDI
controller messages (http://www.audiomulch.com/simulus/p5glove/). All of
those currently available there only use the finger bending and x/y/z
position (no angles alas...).

My R&D setup consists of the glove, a windows computer with (one) MIDI
interface and a Nord MicroModular.

First impression: way cool! Depending on the patch, you can either use
the glove to control weird washes of sound, control sound parameters of
normal patches you play with your left hand, or play melodies with the
glove. I'll explore this some more, stay tuned...

Caveat: the drivers I use generate MIDI CC messages, no MIDI note
commands. This somehow limits the choice of synthesizers you can use the
glove to really play melodies. It works with the Modular...

To use the glove to control software synths on the same computer, you
need some kind of (software) MIDI patchbay. One of them is called MIDI
Yoke - haven't played with that so far...

        Rainer

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: mark sottilaro [mailto:zerocrossing2001@yahoo.com] 
Gesendet: Freitag, 23. Dezember 2005 09:16
An: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Betreff: Re: AW: GypsiMIDI Controller... - and lowcost alternatives


Woah, the p5 glove sure has come down a lot... anyone
do stuff with MIDI and a Macintosh on one of those? 
That sure seems FUN....

In your face Pamela Z!

--- Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill
<rs@moinlabs.de> wrote:

> I got myself a P5 glove (by a company whose name I
> do not remember, but
> I remember a price somewhere in the $20 range).
> The Memory VST plugin uses it - and recently (more
> precisely after
> reading your message), I found that there are in
> fact glove-to-MIDI
> drivers available:
> 
> 
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: mech [mailto:mech@m3ch.net]
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 21. Dezember 2005 20:23
> An: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Betreff: GypsiMIDI Controller...
> 
> 
> http://www.sonalog.com/
> 
> Interesting gesture-based MIDI controller (their
> site has several
> Quicktime video demos).  I especially like the vocal
> loop capture 
> demonstration in the "Mocap Rap" video.
> 
> This might work especially well for putting a little
> visual interest
> back into those "tablecore" laptop shows.  Damn
> thing is bloody 
> expensive, though...
> 
>       --m.
> 
> --
> _______
> "Behind every fear lies a wish, don't you think...?"
> 
> 
> 



                
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