Class notes, 27 Sep 2020

Genre conflation

This is a counter to sampling and using electronics to invent new music. Instruments from one style of music are used to perform a style of music from a completely unrelated genre. My favorite examples are “pirate metal” or the band Orkestra Obsolete playing famous pop music.

We’re skipping a lot of contemporary genres — things like EDM, IDM, dub, liquid trap, and future soul. There’s an entire class in this topic, but if you want to go on a genre-binge-fest then Ishkur’s Guide is one place to start: http://music.ishkur.com/

Physical interaction options

How to hide things in plain sight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T61-twuvJA4

Bill Shannon, PGH native, who defies disability with dance performance:

and his tutorial on a dance form he developed:

Ways of making sound

Some examples of different ways people create sound

Using things you already have at home

There’s a Japanese TV show for kids, “Pythagora Switch“, that features Rube-Goldberg like devices made with stuff you’d find around the house. These are so popular with adults that people go a little over the top making/recording their own devices still using common items.

Arduino data collection/processing tips

how to debounce a switch: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Debounce

standard deviations, arrays, and monitoring a variable source. flattening data with mean / median.

// -*-c++-*-
/*
  The MIT License (MIT)

  Copyright (c) 2019 Jet Townsend

  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
  of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
  in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
  to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
  copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
  furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
  all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
  IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
  FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
  AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
  LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
  OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
  THE SOFTWARE.
*/

/* basic stats with analogRead()

   intputs
   A0 pot

   output
   D2 Speaker
   D13 LED

   40 NEOPIXEL

*/

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>

#ifdef __AVR__
#include <avr/power.h>
#endif
#define PIN            44
#define NUMPIXELS      1
Adafruit_NeoPixel pixels = Adafruit_NeoPixel(NUMPIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRBW + NEO_KHZ800);

static int plotter = 1;
static int console = !plotter;

static const int inPot = A0;
unsigned int potValue;

static const int sampleSize = 16;
int readings[sampleSize];
unsigned int sampleIndex = 0;
unsigned long lastSampleTime = 0;
unsigned long sampleInterval = 100; // in ms
// we need to move these out of the loop() as well
unsigned int median = 0;
unsigned int low = 1024;
unsigned int high = 0;
unsigned int mean = 0;

static const int statusLed = 13;
unsigned int lastRedVal = 0;
unsigned int analogMax = 1023;

void setup() {
  //analogWriteResolution(10); // Set analog out resolution to max, 10-bits
  analogReadResolution(12); // and read at 12 bits
  analogMax = 1023 * 4;

  Serial.begin(115200);

  pinMode(inPot, INPUT);

  pinMode(statusLed, OUTPUT);

  pixels.begin(); // This initializes the NeoPixel library.

}

void loop() {
  // TODO what happens if you try to set a negative color?
  unsigned int redVal = 0;

  // TODO
  // don't read the input on every loop to help stabilize the data
  // sampling over time is also a UI change, you have to actively
  // block light for
  // sampleSize * sampleInterval milliseconds to create a change

  unsigned long now = millis();
  if (lastSampleTime + sampleInterval < now) {
    lastSampleTime = now;
     potValue = analogRead(inPot);

    // good for debugging:
    //        Serial.print(now);
    //        Serial.print(" ");
    //        Serial.println(potValue);

    readings[sampleIndex] = potValue;
    sampleIndex < (sampleSize - 1) ? sampleIndex++ : sampleIndex = 0;

    digitalWrite(inPot, HIGH);
    for (int i = 0; i < sampleSize; i++) {
      mean += readings[i];
      if (readings[i] < low) {
        low = readings[i];
      }
      if (readings[i] > high) {
        high = readings[i];
      }
    }
    mean = mean / sampleSize;
    bubbleSort();
    median = readings[sampleSize / 2];
  }

  // set the pixels with different values, mean, median, current read

  // long map(long x, long in_min, long in_max, long out_min, long out_max)
  // in A10, the value of 600 was the bottom end
  // TODO use a flashlight to break this, more light == lower number
  // than 600
  redVal = map(median, 5, analogMax, 0, 255);

  //  at home, 950 was the bottom end. Remember that higher value == less light
  // how do we dynamically set the bottom end of the map?
  //    redVal = map(median, 950, analogMax, 0, 255);

  // what about changing the max value of redVal so we have a dimmer range?
  //    redVal = map(median, 600, analogMax, 0, 128);

  // TODO keep the pixel from blinking
  /*
    // simple, but allows for some blinking
      if (redVal != lastRedVal) {
          pixels.setPixelColor(0, pixels.Color(redVal,0,0));
          pixels.show(); // This sends the updated pixel color to the hardware.
          lastRedVal = redVal;
      }
  */


  // use a tolerance to limit to a range
  // by making this not a const we can change it in the code
  // as needed

  int tolerance = 5;

  // This looks like it should work, right?
  // what happens if lastRedVal is 0?
  if (
    (redVal >  (lastRedVal + tolerance))
    || (redVal <  (lastRedVal - tolerance))
  ) {

    pixels.setPixelColor(0, pixels.Color(redVal, 0, 0));
    pixels.show(); // This sends the updated pixel color to the hardware.
    lastRedVal = redVal;
  }

  // console
  if (console) {
    Serial.print("reading ");
    Serial.print(potValue);
    Serial.print(" low ");
    Serial.print(low);
    Serial.print(" high ");
    Serial.print(high);
    Serial.print(" mean ");
    Serial.println(mean);
    Serial.print(" median ");
    Serial.print(median);
    Serial.print(",");
    Serial.print(" redVal ");
    Serial.println(redVal);
    delay(100);
    digitalWrite(inPot, LOW);
    delay(100);
  }
  else if (plotter) {
    // plotter
    Serial.print(low);
    Serial.print(",");
    Serial.print(high);
    Serial.print(",");
    Serial.print(mean);
    Serial.print(",");
    Serial.print(median);
    Serial.print(",");
    Serial.println(redVal);
  }

}

// tigoe's sort for an array
void bubbleSort() {
  int out, in, swapper;
  for (out = 0 ; out < sampleSize; out++) { // outer loop
    for (in = out; in < (sampleSize - 1); in++)  { // inner loop
      if ( readings[in] > readings[in + 1] ) { // out of order?
        // swap them:
        swapper = readings[in];
        readings [in] = readings[in + 1];
        readings[in + 1] = swapper;
      }
    }
  }
}