O-Bow repurposes a mouse sensor for artificial bow tracking

Here at the Engadget HQ we’re very serious about articulating the noise and action of a bow when it comes to our synthesized string instruments , and the O-Bow looks like it could be the low cost solution we were dreaming of. (No, Smule Magic Fiddle doesn’t count, it’s a devil “instrument” and it lies). Hacker / musician Dylan Menzies has devised a method using the optical sensor from a mouse for tracking anything with a grained surface, like a wooden stick, and using it to make a single sample synthesizer “sing” like a real bowed instrument. Unfortunately, that single sample sounds pretty terrible right now, but Dylan is working on a more sophisticated method of modeling the instrument. Until then, we’ll just have to resort to giving Smule dirty looks and messing around with our Korg joystick. There’s a video after the break, but don’t say we didn’t warn you about that sample. Continue reading O-Bow repurposes a mouse sensor for artificial bow tracking O-Bow repurposes a mouse sensor for artificial bow tracking originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Posted by on November 23, 2010. Filed under News, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry