Getting the most from your gypsy motion capture midi arm

Esa Straton · Post by **Esa Straton** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:35 am

So, heres my question to all the ableton pros out there. If you had a Gypsy midi arm, what would you set it up to control? If you don't know what I'm talking about head over here, www.sonalog.com . I have 1 arm. It's ridiculously fun. My main goal for it is to use it live and remove any trace of boring from live electronic music. A quick rundown of what it can do, each axis of your arm movement can be a single or multi trigger, as well as a continuous controller. You can have 6 trigger and or controller modules.The software included is pretty good, but I'm planning to build some custom machines in reaktor. BRAINSTORM MY PEOPLES!!
I know yall have some killer ideas already....hook em up.
If you want to see a very simple demo of the arm in action, go here, www.esnips.com/web/carsonlabsinternational and download the video file labeled BODY CONTROL.

Pzzz, Esa

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:46 pm

YGBSM...

Esa Straton · Post by **Esa Straton** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:01 pm

No spoofin goin on here. It's for real. It's actually a pretty simple concept. Slap a potentiometer on each of your arm's rotational axis, and BAM! Midi arm. The gypsy unit was actually originally developed for motion capture to be applied to animation. So they just modded the data output to be midi.

sebovzeoueb · Post by **sebovzeoueb** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 12:26 am

Yes, I have read about this controller in the computer music magazine. I can confirm that it does exist.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:22 pm

hambone1 wrote:YGBSM...

...as in "would you be REALLY wanna be caught dead in public with something like that strapped to you?"

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:02 pm

Must cost a lot?

I'm expecting to be shocked - ie. £1 million or 50p.

Esa Straton · Post by **Esa Straton** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:31 pm

One arm costs about 1200usd. A pair costs 2200. The parent company makes a full body suit, that could be modified for midi output, but I have no idea how much it costs.
Hambone, Anyone can look like an idiot in anything in public. Most importantly I don't want to look like the personification of boredom, stuck behind a laptop, basically looking as though I'm checking my email. Being a good dancer helps as well as far as motion capture midi control goes.
More importantly I wasn't looking for haters.
I'm looking for ideas.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:58 pm

okay, you're looking for ideas:

Get Max, if you don't already have it... seriously, it will add endless fun to just about any midi controller.
What I would do with it is set up a semi-circle of control in front of you to trigger notes in a sequence, setting the note-values by raising your arm, setting velocity by turning your wrist.