MyOrchestra

Symphony mode with the middle section (out of three available) selected.
Calibration before a crowd-sourced orchestral piece.

A Waterloo WearHacks 36-hour hackathon project.

Project: MyOrchestra is an orchestral music experience. Become a conductor and direct your own orchestra using a Myo armband and intuitive gesture controls.

Inspiration

Make an intuitive and simple music mixing platform that lets the audience and artist interact in new ways.

What it does

This system allows the user to conduct their own virtual orchestra composed of their own "orchestral" sections. Though using spacial gestures, properties of each section can be individually manipulated to quickly and uniquely prototype/perform compositions.

Moreover, it allows the audience to contribute to the performance along with the artist using crowd sourced audio. The audience can dial into the show and leave sound bytes for the artist to use. The artist can mix the sounds in real time during the show.

How we built it

We used the accelerometer and gyroscope positioning system of the Myo to setup, select, and manipulate tracks. We used the Twilio platform to source audio from the audience. The artist can access the crowd sourced audio through HTTP hooks to our web server and use them alongside pre-recorded audio tracks.

Challenges we ran into

Dealing with a multiple Myo setup
Determining the spacial boundaries for audio control
Sourcing the audio from the crowd via the Twilio platform
Drinking Solent during the hackathon
Integrating the various systems together
Selecting and debugging various hardware platforms (e.x. MbientLab MetaWare, Thalamic Labs Myo, Leap Motion) during the design stage