Makey Makey XY Controller

[frazer]

I've been conducting (pun completely intended) lots of experiments with a piece of technology called Makey Makey, my favourite discovery so far has been making a joystick out of a cup of water.

By putting a wire onto the bottom of a cup it acts as the earth, then with wires down the sites as you tilt the cup it triggers these connections on the side. Makey Makey allows you to connect physical objects to the buttons on your keyboard, so in this example the wires on the side become the cursor keys. In the past I've used this to control racing games, very simple and very fun.

Now, I'm trying to explore using MIDI. For example, tilting the cup would allow you to control a filter sweep inside a DAW or if you used VJ software it could be mapped to RGB values. Essentially a cup of water joystick.

As a complete MIDI novice, whats the best software to convert MakeyMakey into MIDI values? I found 'midimidi' only allows for on/off functionality, so unfortunately its not an option. I'm not wanting to send simple on/off note values, instead I want CC Values which I can then assign to various things within Logic Pro X (my digital audio workstation of choice).

Thanks in advance!

[whyterabbyt]

As a complete MIDI novice, whats the best software to convert MakeyMakey into MIDI values? I found 'midimidi' only allows for on/off functionality, so unfortunately its not an option. I'm not wanting to send simple on/off note values, instead I want CC Values which I can then assign to various things within Logic Pro X (my digital audio workstation of choice).

Thanks in advance!

If you're saying CCs, do you mean you want the MM to send a variable value? I dont think it does that 'as is', so unless you go in and reprogram the code you may not be able to.

(To expand, the MM pins are set up electronically in a specific way for capacitive-style touch sensing, and the code running on the board is part of that, including appropriate filtering of the pin inputs, so that it can detect a varying input and output 'sane' on/off values.
To get the MM to do what you want, I think you'd basically have to ditch all of that and treat it like a standard arduino. At which point it might be easier to just use a standard arduino.)

[frazer]

Well, I was hoping that by using the MM I could control the cursor keys - which could then be programmed in software to create variable values. Essentially as you tilt it to the right, then the longer it stays 'pressed' the said value increases. So the values it creates are like that of a slider or rotary knob. I hope that makes more sense?

[whyterabbyt]

Well, I was hoping that by using the MM I could control the cursor keys - which could then be programmed in software to create variable values. Essentially as you tilt it to the right, then the longer it stays 'pressed' the said value increases. So the values it creates are like that of a slider or rotary knob. I hope that makes more sense?

I think you'll have to describe how it behaves a bit more. You're sort of implying that you send a changing CC continuously at regular intervals. What does stopping tilting do? Is tilting left a different CC, or does it decrease the CC? How do you intend to keep a constant CC?

Personally, I'd mock this up in MAX/MSP, because I dont think it maps onto existing solutions that well, but there are other code-type solutions.

However, at this point, I'd reiterate that its actually far easier to program an arduino or teensy or somesuch to read variable values of an actual joystick pot and send them as real MIDI.

[frazer]

The only reason I jumped to MM is because i've had experience with that, Arduino is a whole new world to me - but something I'd be willing to experiment with too (especially if its easier as you suggest)!

The ultimate goal is to have 5 wires inside the cup - 4 spaced around the inside of the cup at 90 degree intervals and then our earth at the bottom. The Left and Right wires would control an X values (with R adding and L subtracting) whilst the Top and Bottom would control the Y values (similarly adding and subtracting).

Now just what these are controlling i've not quite figured out yet - I'm concentrating on working out the feasibility of the tech - but a great start would be an XY pad on a soft synth.

I hope that makes more sense?

[whyterabbyt]

The only reason I jumped to MM is because i've had experience with that, Arduino is a whole new world to me - but something I'd be willing to experiment with too (especially if its easier as you suggest)!

The ultimate goal is to have 5 wires inside the cup - 4 spaced around the inside of the cup at 90 degree intervals and then our earth at the bottom. The Left and Right wires would control an X values (with R adding and L subtracting) whilst the Top and Bottom would control the Y values (similarly adding and subtracting).

Now just what these are controlling i've not quite figured out yet - I'm concentrating on working out the feasibility of the tech - but a great start would be an XY pad on a soft synth.

I hope that makes more sense?

Ok, it I see what you're talking about now with the horizontal/vertical axes being +/- paired +/- for your CC. However, the MM possibly (Im not 100% sure) only sends each keypress once until the next time contact is made. If it does that, there's a problem with a tilt switch; how do you know if contact is made and held for your value to rise?
If the MM keeps sending a value that's held, you wont have that problem, but I dont know which way it works offhand.

[frazer]

When I've used MakeyMakey for projects in the past, if you hold a connection down then you get a machine-gun effect as it constantly re-triggers. I'm just not sure what software I should be using to make this all happen, looks like I may have to find a local programmer to help me out.

[deastman]

My brother gave me a MakeyMakey as a birthday gift a few years ago. I played around with it for a couple of days and then promptly forgot all about it. It basically emulates a standard USB computer keyboard with a limited character set. I'm not sure if the keyboard repeat rate and onset delay for repeats are set in the computer OS or in the MakeyMakey (Arduino). If it is the latter, you could reprogram it pretty easily.