VirtualBongoBand

Welcome to our Project Page!!!

We are :

Pascal Staudt
Rick Plescher
Denis Huber

We all study Audio Communication and Technology (M.Sc.)

Our Project Name: Virtual Bongo Band

Project Topic:

Playing virtual percussion instruments with user movement input data from the Kinect  sensor.
Allowing multiple users to play in a group.

Brainstorming Results:

- we all love music and therefore we wanted to do something with sound output

- percussion instruments do not need a high detail of precision to play unlike guitars or keys

- ordinary people  without musical knowledge can play percussion

- multiple users should be able to play simultaneously in order to get a band feeling

- funny ideas like a graphical representation of players as monkeys

- add a virtual scratch deck with vocal samples as extra feature

Requirements:

- Kinect Camera

- Big Screen

- Audio Output

- Processing and Simple Open NI Framework

- Java Sound or Super Collider for sound processing

- Some Graphic Skills for the monkeys:)

Task Breakdown:

- Creating Blog and Git Repository for Version Control (Denis)

- Technology Research (Rick,Pascal)

- Sound Output , Sample Processing (Rick)

- Kinect Interface (Pascal)

- Program Logic (Denis)

User Profile:

Tim is having lunch at the TU Mensa.

Tim is a Computer Science student and he has no musical knowledge or training.

But he likes music a lot especially Techno Music. 

After his delicious meal he is going downstairs in the main hall

passing by a big empty screen. A solo percussion sound plays. He draws his attention towards the screen, where now a monkey appeared and a text which says "make movement x to start play".

When he performs this initial gesture a screen where he can choose from different percussion instruments appears(optional). He chooses a bongo, and a big bongo appears on the screen. Now he is able to play bongo virtually by strumming his hands in the air.  Tim's mate Klaus is passing by and while he enters the Camera Range the option for a second player pops up. When Klaus performs the entry gesture he is joining Tim for a double percussion session. Up to 5 players should be possible to join the band.  Tim has enough and has to meet his next class, so he is leaving. He automatically gets disconnected and now Klaus is playing solo. But Klaus doesn't like to play alone, so he leaves too. Now the application shuts down and gets back into player detection mode waiting for new players to enter. 

If you don't have a project yet and want to join us, feel free to contact us, especially if you have design skills!