First, let me apologize for not coming up with a more catchy title for this post. I’ve been overwhelmed by the information I’ve found over this weekend. That’s no exaggeration. Furthermore, this is all new to me so I am not up on the digitial music vernacular so it’s like learning a new language.
First, if you saw my Tweets, you would have seen how excited I was that caught wind that the Wii controllers have Bluetooth in them. I honestly had no idea. Additionally, there’s been a ton of super smart, talented people out there writing crazy apps (for Win, Linux, and Mac) to do all sorts of crazy things.
How this started was that I got some great comments from Andy on Bob on my Theremin post a couple of days ago. Somehow, I got down the rabbit hole looking for ways to make a Theremin-sort-of-thing on my Mac using the Wii controllers.
I found a great amount of great resources and I got pretty darn close. But I had to learn how to use GarageBand, play around with the Mac MIDI drivers, and put them all together and make ’em play nice. If I understood all the terminology, this would be easier, I think.
I was playing “drums” and guitar with my Wii controller, Nunchuck, and Garageband. That was pretty cool, I must say. I read about WiiJ’s and other looping sort of things. I was so excited that I jumped head first into it, trying to get it all to work. And that’s my problem. I got to the point where it just wasn’t making sense any more, (seriously, I’ve felt like this trying to learn a new language).
The good news, I think I got all the pieces I need and I learned a ton about the potential for the Wii remote and digital music making, not just a Theremin. I need to digest it and put together in a way that makes sense. This is some pretty slick stuff.
Oh, did I mention that a lot of this isn’t just for the Mac?
Definitely more to come!
Wii Loop Machine Demo from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.