Wiimote + midiyoke + GlovePIE + PD = Joy
Well, I took the next step in my exploration of experimental performance interfaces & Pd and decided to install Pd for Windows & tried the Wiimote. I spent some time looking for a PC Wii to midi driver and eventually found one that worked called Glovepie. I also installed midiYoke as a midi “patch bay” driver that links everything together. I then used Pd to receive & process the midi data from the Wiimote.
In the process, I took a script for an oscillator that came bundled with Pd & modified it to accept midi channel data, using a piece of the test script that also comes bundled with Pd. I then had to use & modify a script in Glovepie to have a different starting note value & made sure that Pd used midi yoke (channel 2) as an input device. I’m only succeeding in making the wiimote increment & decrement pitches in a *very* rough way. The process is akin, I think, to learning how to steer a tank. However, it does seem to work.
I captured a short video with my phone so that you can see it for yourself. this time I exported the movie as a .mov & posted it @ http://www.adaptablearts.com/media/jason-wii-pd.mov .
Here’s the process that I used:
- I used a Widcomm bluetooth stack with a recently purchased Belkin bluetooth radio. The toshiba stack is preferred, but widcomm seems to work fine (and you can’t buy the Toshiba stack now anyway). The microsoft stack is utter garbage.
- I then installed Glovepie (open source @ http://carl.kenner.googlepages.com/glovepie_download). This allows for scripted control over the Wii (and other devices). The other program I tried was Wiiremote, but it doesn’t control midi data.
- Next I installed Midi yoke, which provides a driver-based ‘patching’ system that glovepie can use to route midi data. Found @ http://www.midiox.com/index.htm?http://www.midiox.com/myoke.htm
- I then found & assembled parts of a glovepie script from a forum thread. The script sends midi note values (0-127) to change pitch based on Wii movement. This is far, far from precise, but it gets the data in the general ballpark. Not knowing the scripting language, I had to tweak the script just a bit until I could get the Wiimote to respond somewhat consistently.
- I then launched Pd & loaded a simple oscillator script & modified it to accept midi channel input.
- Pd was also set to receive midi data from MIDI yoke: 2
- I then used the Wiimote to play single pitches up & down a scale (hmmm, sort-of up & down a scale).
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