Mrmr is a wonderful tool for turning your Apple mobile device into a multi-touch controller for performance and controlling visuals and music. It allows custom control layouts, it’s beautifully geared to things you can do with your fingertips, and it’s fully open source. As is often the case on this site, we have two messages. One is about a specific technology to play with, the other about the broader possibilities of digital work.

The specific: Our friend Eric Redlinger has ported his Mrmr open-source OpenSoundControl multi-touch controller app to the 2.x firmware for iPhone and iPod touch. We’ve got screenshots, as seen above or via our Flickr stream, and Eric is looking for beta testers from the CDM community. (More on that in a second.)

The deeper issue: Beyond just Apple’s device, there’s a new opportunity to make controllers standard, open, and self-configuring. Why would you want to do that? Eric explains the vision:

Controlling your multimedia performance or installation with a handheld touchscreen device is cool, but what do you do when your friends want to spontaneously participate using their devices? Typically a long tutorial follows in which you explain what OSC and MIDI are and how they need to find and install a special app, then configure the server and port settings, etc. And, oh yeah, you’ll need their device’s IP number…etc.

Now imagine that conversation being like this: Go to the appstore on your phone right now and download this app. Launch the app. Play.

That’s Mrmr (pronounced murmur), and it exists already for the Mac and for the iPhone/iPod, with clients for other devices to come. Although it is not yet on the appstore, you can beta test it today. Ed.: Damn. I still want to pronounce it “mister mister.” -PK

Mrmr consists of a couple of protocols to specify the type and screen location of interface control ‘widgets’, and specifies a way to send the resulting key presses, slider values etc. back to the VJ/DJ app of your choice. It uses standard OSC for its messaging protocol so it works with any existing app that supports Open Sound Control support.

What this means for you is that you can design a custom interface for your Max/MSP/Jitter / Pure Data / Quartz Composer / etc. environment and push that interface onto your phone, and onto others’ phones, providing a great new way to add multi-user, collaborative elements to your set!

And, of course, this ultimately has implications not just for the multitouch Apple mobiles but future multitouch technology, too.

Project page / wiki: http://poly.share.dj/projects/#mrmr

How to get involved in the beta: Eric is definitely looking for testers. now has the testers he needs! Stay tuned!

You’ll need to email your device ID of your tester iPod touch or iPhone running the 2.x firmware. There are two ways to go about that. Here’s a set of instructions for how to find the ID:

Providing Your iPhone Device ID to a Developer

If you use that approach, be sure to put “mrmr beta” in the subject header.

Even better, Erica Sadun has built an app for the job.

Ad Hoc Helper [iTunes Link]

Download it, run it, and it automatically sends off an email with the ID with the subject line already filled in.

Either way, address your emails to eric (at) share [dot] dj with the ID — and let us know how it goes. We hope to have more support materials up on using mrmr very soon, so stay tuned.

Updated: Eric’s testing list is full! But while the beta testers and Eric work on making the app stable in preparation for release, do stay tuned — we’ll have quite a lot more on OSC and how to use it soon, and will keep you posted on official mrmr for firmware 2.0 availability!

If you still want mrmr right now, it’s available on jailbroken 2.0 firmware via Cydia.

New VJ hardware tends to be few and far between, so we’ve been closely watching the P-10, now officially the “P-10 Visual Sampler.” (The “P” stands for “presenter,” but Edirol has changed from “visual presenter” to “visual sampler” to emphasize the P-10’s sampling features — smart move.) First spotted earlier this spring, the P-10 boasts a built-in display and pads, the ability to play straight from memory cards, and sampling from a live analog video/audio source.

Specs:

• MJPEG movie and still JPEG support
• Slide show capabilities
• Playback and recording from SD(HC) memory cards
• Capture from live video input (onboard composite, S-Video, and even audio in and out)
• Internal color display, 12 trigger pads, dedicated effects dials

About those effects — we now know what they are, and they should look pretty familiar to Edirol owners:

• Movie: Repeat A<>B
• Reverse
• Strobe
• Speed
• Color
• Output Fade
• Still Image: Slide Show, Strobe, Color, Output Fade

There’s also V-LINK support for integration with other Edirol products, though I would imagine you’d mostly want to use the onboard controls.

I think Edirol might be going a bit far when they say this is “a faster, more elegant and reliable alternative to using a laptop on stage.” I’m not sure what they mean by “faster,” and the main problem is that this really isn’t a laptop alternative — laptops just do more. But that said, if I had the cash I’d love to have one of these units alongside a laptop and mixer, and imagine gigging VJs will find the quick SD card capture to be just invaluable, especially if they pick up a camera that saves MJPEGs.

The deal killer for many is likely to be price, but to put this in perspective, this is a lot more compact and flexible than the Korg Kaptivator, which cost about twice as much.
I hope to get a look at the P-10 when it arrives stateside. Speaking of which…

MixEmergency is a new attempt to expand the DJ techniques into the visual realm in a single, integrated environment. And once again, Serato is the backdrop.

We saw Serato’s own Scratch-Live, which provides digital vinyl control in Serato, when dj rndm gave us a detailed hands-on earlier this year. The VIDEO-SL focused on vinyl control of video and integration with the TTM-57SL Rane mixer required for the product. MixEmergency is a bit different: here, visualizations and MIDI are the centerpiece in place of video and scratching. (They’re there, but they’re not the main draw, according to the developers.)

Features:

• QuickTime video mixing and scratching


• Quartz Composer visual compositions, taking advantage of QC’s 3D and image-processing / generative capabilities
• Visuals react to play position and velocity of media, and audio and video signals
• Custom layer and transition effects, frame bending, image and text layers
• Drag and drop preview and playback, drag and drop of folders
• Assignable MIDI control (including MIDI in QC compositions), and support for Scratch LIVE control

MixEmergency Product Page

The software is currently in public beta, Mac-only. The full version will cost US$179 (the demo is watermarked and doesn’t support fullscreen output). As with a number of recent Mac apps, you need a MacBook Pro or other Mac hardware with dedicated graphics. Happily, 10.4.10 works — 10.5 isn’t required.

So who is this for? A lot of the push has been for giving DJs visuals easily — with the danger being potentially eliminating VJs or dumbing down visuals, which isn’t really good for anyone. (See Jaymis’ rant about that direction.) But I don’t get that sense here. In fact, the ability to create custom visualizations means DJs could commission visuals from a VJ and tour with them. The developers actually tout collaborative performance controls and VJs working to design and perform with reactive visuals alongside the DJ. Integrating the two could encourage that kind of collaboration, as dj rndm and Robotkid discovered in our VIDEO-SL review. On the other hand, many VJs will remain happy in their existing environment. But it’s nice to have more choices.

If you try the demo, let us know what you think. I expect we’ll see this are continue to grow and mature.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Jamie and Adam did what may be the greatest illustration of a computing concept onstage ever, using an 1100-barrel paintball gun:

Updated: We’ve seen the basic idea before — one of the Max/MSP + Atmel-powered Printball notes his own, similar project, as featured on Pixelsumo way back in 2005. But it’s the first time I’ve seen this used to illustrate this point.

The basic idea: GPUs, by using parallel processing, are able to render graphics more effectively than CPUs. And while the illustration is something of an oversimplification, it is pretty literal in terms of showing people what’s going on — and why GPUs are uniquely well-suited to computing graphics. Conceptually, it’s really one of the most brilliant demos I’ve ever seen.

There are just a couple of problems — and, amusingly, this demo makes them visible, as well.

Multi-touch for visualists? It’s coming, and it may have nothing to do with names like Apple or Microsoft. But while many projects now are experimental and pricey, your hands do seem to be close to being liberated from the mouse and keyboard alone.

No word on pricing and no real availability information, but the concept is very cool and the demos look fantastic: it’s the MultiTouch Cell, a plug-and-play, stackable, modular box with multi-touch input capabilities. The idea is to grab one, or two, or twenty of these ready-to-use boxes, running PCs with your choice of OS, and go to town with gesturally-controlled on-screen visuals. On paper (or screens, that is), it looks terrific; the creators say the unit is:

• Available in 32″, 46″ sizes with full HD or HD-ready resolution

• High resolution LCDs: full HD or HD-ready
• Several Cells can be combined into one display
• Scratch-resistant glass
• Self-calibrating, built-in diagnostics, and 50,000+-hour expected life
• Connect the display to Mac, Windows, Linux computers, running their proprietary CornerStone tracking and rendering screen “based on industry-standard libraries and protocols”

Now, naturally, there are more questions than answers here — not only about pricing and availability, but the software specifically and how it can be extended. But there’s no question this sort of thing is the future — which raises plenty of questions about why Microsoft isn’t being more aggressive with their Surface, as they could presumably do just this and make it cheaper and easy for developers.

multitouch.fi (Project Page)

More Multi-Touch Goodness

While we’re at it, here are a couple of related multi-touch projects I’ve seen lately — each, perhaps, more practical for the readers of this site than the proposed Cell project above:

I believe that coding is an essential skill for people making live digital visuals. At the same time, there’s no question that learning to code has been a big obstacle for visually creative people — especially as they have plenty of other things on their mind. You need somewhere to start, and you need to make the learning curve manageable. Processing has been a great tool for doing that, but the point isn’t to learn Processing — it’s to learn how to code.

For that reason, I’m thrilled that Dan Shiffman’s book Learning Processing is now in print and available. I’ve been waiting for this for some time. There are already a couple of great books out there for Processing, but Dan’s book is unique in that it’s entirely focused on teaching you to code visuals step by step, even if you haven’t coded before. Dan teaches coding to creative-minded non-coders at NYU’s ITP program, and the book comes out of that teaching technique.

I know the book very well as I served as a technical editor during its development. We’ll be running an exclusive set of excerpts this week, but here’s a look at what’s included:

• Basics of code structure, pixels, interaction, and fundamentals like how the coordinate system works
• Using arrays to make lots of stuff appear on the screen, including particle systems
• Basics of images, video, data, and networking
• How to use object-oriented programming to make coding easier and more efficient
• Extending Processing with Java and more advanced coding techniques

By the time you’re done, you’ll be processing pixels, drawing generative visuals, and writing well-organized code.

To me, one of the real strengths of this book for teaching and learning is its strong emphasis on object-oriented programming, in a way people can actually understand. Explained properly, objects can really help keep your code clean. For some reason, this is often viewed as an “advanced” concept, but on the contrary, I’ve found using objects actually helps keep beginners from getting tripped up. And, to put it in visual terms, understanding objects is a terrific skill for getting lots of glitzy eye candy up on the screen.

Here’s what Dan has to say about the book (emphasis mine):

My goal for “Learning Processing” was to write something for the complete and total programming beginner. If you’ve never written a line of code before in your life, but want to get started creating your own digital media tools then I wrote this book for you. There are several other wonderful Processing books out there and I hope mine will complement them nicely. A special thanks to Casey, Ben, and Ira who kept encouraging and inspiring me as their books were being published.

The book is also geared towards the teacher. It’s not my belief that such a person will necessarily learn any new skills from the book (assuming they have a programming background), however, my hope is that the book will encourage and help facilitate the teaching of programming. It is structured with 10 lessons (complete with examples and exercises) and can act as a ready-made syllabus for a beginner interactive media / programming class. In fact, the book is modeled exactly on ITP’s Introduction to Computational Media course.

The book is available on Amazon.com. It shows out of stock, but those kind of screw-ups are common when a book has just come out (speaking as a published author here).

Stay tuned for those excerpts later this week; I’m editing them now!

See also: Dan Shiffman’s blog, Facebook Page, Official Site, free download of TOC and first chapter

London-based, French-born VJ and artist Pikilipita doesn’t touch laptops. He shows up at live visual gigs toting game systems. Having built mobile projects for the Game Boy Advanced and Linux-based GamePark GP2X, he’s now got a new machine: a Barbie-pink PlayStation 2.

Novelty this may be, but don’t think that PS24VJ can’t hack it as a real VJ app, allowing you to leave the laptop at home:

• Plays footages compressed with the Kouky video codec v16
• Supports two video layers
• Supports alpha channel
• Special effects and filters
• PAL video out signal

And because it supports up to two PlayStation controller inputs, two people can play at once. (One of the big problems with computers, I think, is that they’re entirely restricted to single-user metaphors.) Each VJ controls one video layer at a time.

Pikilipita is happy to share his creation with you, too, for a donation of whatever you think is appropriate. PS2 games don’t even require hacked systems, either, unlike DS or PSP homebrew software (which has proven a major pain for the homebrew music scene).

Pikilipita points CDM to the PSD2DEV network for more on how to develop for the system. I’m surprised at how well-documented this is:
PS2DEV PS2 Page (loaders, development toolchain, tutorials, sample code, demos)

What do you need to run them? He writes:

My systems works on any regular playstation 2, you don’t need a modified one. All you need is a special DVD called “swap magic 3.6″ (http://www.swapmagic3.com) to force booting on the USB port and that’s it!

On the USB port of the console, you insert a memory stick containing the software and the footages you want to use.

PS24VJ Project Page

Movies of the PS24VJ in action are available on his site:
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=18
http://pikilipita.com/vj/flv-player.php?mov=17

Overview sheet:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-sheet-1.01.pdf

User’s manual:
http://www.pikilipita.com/vj/ps24vj/PS24VJ-manual-1.00.pdf

If you’re near London, you can catch PS4VJ live at the AV Social. I’m super jealous:
British Film Institute AV Social

Worlds Will Shatter - The Unfold trailer from Nine Orders on Vimeo.

A Swarm of Angels just announced they’ve released an “open source trailer” — that is, with a Creative Commons license for remixing — for their upcoming collaborative sci fi thriller film. The trailer already demonstrates some of the fruits of this collaborative effort from around the planet.

Worlds Will Shatter: open source trailer [A Swarm of Angels]

Click through the video link for HD on Vimeo.

Apologies for the copy and paste, but I’ve got a train to catch and they say it quite eloquently, so here you go:

I’m proud to release the first open source film trailer created for A Swarm of Angels. World’s Will Shatter sets the scene for The Unfold, a contemporary sci-fi thriller being made in a revolutionary fashion; by a global community of members participating in its creation, and contributing their unique talents and skills.

Driven by a core collaboration between the animation skills of Mayec Rancel, and the soundtrack smarts of Santiago Abadia, the trailer is at the forefront of new creative processes empowered through the Internet of crowdsourcing, and peer production. Finished with title design by the internationally recognised graphic talents of Matt Pyke of Universal Everything collaborating with Maxim Zhestkov, it is a stunning glimpse into a world being created by a global membership fueling a pioneering people-powered film studio.

Rancel has evoked a powerful unfolding world created in 3D from 2D images created by Japanese photographer Palla. Through community feedback and discussion at the forums of aswarmofangels.com the initial ideas developed into a spiralling, shearing cityscape synchronised with an otherworldly soundtrack developed by Abadia. The online collaboration encompassed a team of participants from Spain, Belgium, the North and South of England, Japan, as well as Russia (not including members who participated in votes and posts via the forums).

The trailer and all accompanying source files are released under a Creative Commons CC-NC-SA-3.0 license, allowing full non-commercial remixing and sharing (embed codes for Youtube, blip.tv & hi-def Vimeo). Join the Swarm to help make the film and get further details for the open source package (register here, full member details here).

Anyone from CDMotion involved in this project? Impressions on the first results? Considering getting involved? Say so in comments.

Something’s happening in software. Generative techniques have been around about as long as computers, but from Spore’s game design, soundtrack and creature editors to new music software like Nodal and Noatikl, in 2008 we’re seeing those techniques more accessible than ever. Good news for fans of the demoscene (an underground movement melding coding and art): it’s back with a vengeance, now interconnected with the larger Web and friendlier software-making tools.

It’s only a public alpha, but Toolbox, bargain-priced at 20 Euros (EUR50 when released), suggests what graphics apps might look like with an entirely different metaphor, built on generative lines. The creator describes the tool as a “node-based editor for making digital art,” or a “visual programming language” — the latter something we usually associate exclusively with patching tools like Max/MSP/Jitter and Quartz Composer. The difference here is, whereas those are open-ended software sketchpads, Toolbox is a single-window editor and integrated environment for making visuals, more along the lines of a Photoshop or Illustrator. I’m not suggesting you’ll toss your Creative Suite 3 license out the window, but what this does mean is you could generate an asset from start to finish in this tool — and, perhaps, take it out to another program.

Toolbox App Product Page, Download
Video Album on Vimeo
Flickr Set

The whole project is the work of one developer, Simon Strandgaard. (Remember, too, Quartz Composer began as the project of one Pierre Oliver-Latour.)

What does all this mean? It means you can make UI elements quickly, or destroy existing graphics, and play with vectors in a fluid, magically generative way. The alpha state can make it slow and unpredictable to work with, but it’s already capable of some fun stuff. Here’s a look at vector filtering:

Random vector filter experiments from Simon Strandgaard on Vimeo.

Yes, sometimes the greatest DIY projects are built not from scratch but from the cannibalized bits of other, less-brilliant controllers. Together, these pieces become greater as a whole, from bland and boring to bizarre and fantastic.

Case in point: Devin aka “mzo” writes us with his Cyrillic-emblazoned custom controller creation for VJ control. The project was built by the talented Craig Komega (more on his work coming soon — he’s the maker of the awesome Komegatone).

The controller is built from modifying 3 off the shelf controllers (M-Audio Trigger Finger, Belkin Nostromo n52 gamepad and the old Mixman Dm2) into a custom made, laser etched box with a cold-war soviet space station theme (hence the name Def-con, also Definable-controller because of its flexibility in programming). The computer still sees the thing as 3 seperate and unmodified devices and I program them for my vj’ing using the respective software for each (although the dm2 to midi software isn’t from the manufacturer). This also makes the controller suitable for a wide variety of applications including dj’ing.

I currently use this controller with Vjamm, Resolume, Live and Traktor with custom control setups for each.

I was curious about more details of how the controller mappings were used in action, so Devin sent more.

Full-size image download of above

No videos, but he did write up some other impressions: