Music and Colour in Grasshopper

Hi Guy's.

I am looking to connect an instrument (midi keyboard) into grasshopper and then control the colour output of my model in Rhino. Essentially changing the colour depending on what notes, frequencies or pitch I play.

I am wondering if anyone has ever tried or managed to do this and how I might do it?

Thanks in advance!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Armin Seltz on October 7, 2016 at 9:17am

Its possible, but not easy. It depends if you want to do this totally live or not. The first hard part is storing the notes and this really cant be done in grasshopper, because its actually quite hard to record them. That is because you can have any number of notes playing at the same time and they can overlap. I mean you only need that if you want to store the length as well though. You are saying you want to use "notes, frequencies and pitch", but they are all the same thing. There is time, note, velocity and duration.

This is done using midi: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/video/midi-data-to-animation

Here is some idea what goes into it: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/music-visualisation?comme...

Also this: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/video/live-midi-in-grasshopper-using-o...

They are quite different behind the scenes, but in both cases the actual midi data is recorded or processed outside of grasshopper. In one case its done in vvvv and in the other its pre-recorded midi, which is converted.

If you want live input you will need to use firefly, which works with OSC, and something that converts midi to OSC. You can do this with MaxMSP, processing, vvvv or OSCulator (Mac only).

Permalink Reply by Matthew Chamberlain on October 7, 2016 at 9:43am

Hey man. Very helpful thanks. And the links were really cool and very interesting!

I am guessing that the use of firefly is probably the best route because it would be live input. Essentially the concept is that someone would start playing the keyboard and as the notes start playing the lights on the building would light up. The effects of these lights would alter in response to the how the piece is played (Still to be properly worked out).

Is it possible then, if you know, to show me how to use firefly basically to start seeing objects changing colour in rhino as i play my keyboard?

Permalink Reply by Armin Seltz on October 10, 2016 at 4:30am

Hey Matthew.

You will need 2 things at the very least:

1) Something that takes the Midi data coming from your keyboard and convert it to OSC. Remember since OSC works either on the same computer or one that is connected via network, it can be another computer (like a Mac) too. I mention Mac, because OSCulator will be the easiest to do this, but its Mac only. Otherwise you will have to make something in a tool like vvvv, which is kind of similar to Grasshopper.

2) Ghowl to receive the OSC data (mainly Note and Velocity) and then do something with it in Grasshopper.

I havent opened vvvv in some time, but you should find something searching their Forum or asking there. They have a very active community that will at least point you in the right direction.

The Grasshopper part is fairly easy, but it helps to understand how OSC works (its not complicated at all).

Sorry to not be of more help, but I simply dont have time to actually build something for you.

Good luck and I can help you with specific things of course.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Chamberlain on October 10, 2016 at 7:08am

Cheers man.

I'll have a look at it!

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