Project Description:
Music technology has played a prominent role in the video game industry over the last decade. Games on XBox, Playstation, and Nintendo Wii have all used video game controllers in a fashion similar to inputing notes or rhythms into an instrument. The original Dance Dance Revolution (1989) consisted of a floor board with different large buttons that had to be "danced" on at the right time to play the game. More recent games like Guitar Hero (2005) can require special controllers that represent instruments and are played in the same fashion. The digital signals sent from the controller to the console are then used to assess whether the player has successfully earned enough points to clear the level. On the flip side of the coin, musicians have been using keyboards and other instrument interfaces to send notes in a digital format since the birth of MIDI in 1981. This can be used to trigger synthesizers and samplers that can reproduce or create practically any sound conceived by man. Even beyond this, today a note on a piano keyboard can be used to trigger a musical loop of any length, turn an effect on or off, or even change the timbre or color of the sound (or even lighting in the room) if desired. These advances in music gaming and music creation have very recently started to meet in the middle. Third party programs have been developed to convert the digital signals from game controllers so that they can be used to create and perform music in almost any form. The newly released game Rock Band (Nov '07) offers four person cooperative game play in which controllers for drums, bass, guitar, and vocals are emulated and players are judged on their accuracy in comparison to real hit songs. In short, the line between pushing buttons on an instrument and on a game controller is blurring quickly and giving way to a new paradigm of entertainment and creativity. Exhibit: A visual timeline of both industries and their overlap. An interactive setup of video game controllers, computer keyboards, midi keyboards, motion sensing midi controllers, drum machines, abstracts, etc that can all be used to produce music. A collection of videos explaining midi uses and development Rock Band, DDR, and other music game setups Potential live performances by local musicians

SecondLife URL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Tech/67/120/37/