horses and music

Ellen Singlefoot · Joined: Aug 24, 2008 Posts: 2 Location: North Carolina

I'd like to find out how I might put simple sensors on the hooves of my horses and have individual notes for each hoof - partly to start by knowing when each hoof is setting down, and then to progress to who-knows-where! I have some gaited horses, so their foot-fall pattern is different.
Where should I go to get help with this project?
Thanks!
Ellen

blue hell · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:48 am Post subject: Re: horses and music

seraph · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 3:46 am Post subject:

I think drum triggers should do (maybe not underneath the hoof but on its side Wink

) then you need a battery powered wireless trigger-to-midi device connected to a wireless midi transmitter (like M-Audio MidAir)

Maybe it's easier to get midi data from hamsters Exclamation

EdisonRex · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 2:32 pm Post subject:

I am thinking some kind of piezo thing, although the wireless aspects of the problem become much more interesting than pressure sensing a horse's steps. The telemetry is non-trivial, although perhaps MIDI over wireless (or OSC) would do the trick. So an integrator for the 4 foot sensors, translating to MIDI with velocity, etc, and broadcast it over MIDI over ethernet, in turn making the ethernet wireless. Whew.

One wonders for what real purpose this serves since horses don't exactly work in long cadences on short fields.

Acoustic Interloper · Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject:

Another possibility would be to mic them, mix them, and feed the mix out over a cell phone.

Howard, I think we need a sensored horse icon!

Too bad I don't have much of a relationship with my daughter's horse, whose been eating oats and hay with no payback since she went off to college 4 years ago. I'd probably be kicked!

Ellen Singlefoot · Joined: Aug 24, 2008 Posts: 2 Location: North Carolina

Thanks all!
My neice's friend is going to help me with this project. He told me the hamsters were great! Inspired him! I have a s-l-o-w dial-up, and haven't seen them yet. He'll have more time this weekend to check out the possibilities.

GrangeGrover · Joined: Sep 07, 2008 Posts: 4 Location: Asheville

Hey guys, I'm helping Ellen out with this project and was wondering if y'all could help me with a couple things or knew any answers to any of these questions:

1. I'm thinking of mic'ing each foot and sending a separate signal for each. Any way to set an audio threshold and make the audio signal a MIDI note (before it gets to a computer)? I need each one to send a different MIDI note for each footstep. The more I think about this the less feasible it sounds - either they are just audio signals, or they pick up too much background noise (from the other feet)

2. Drum triggers that are sensitive enough to feel the individual footsteps? I'm not very familiar with electric drums but I'm guessing they are more sensitive than just pads (like on a drum machine) in which case do they still send a MIDI note, or is it more of a constant signal relating the intensity of vibration? Also, I've noticed that they seem to be specialized to the type of drum they are connected to (kick, snare, etc.) and I wonder which would best pick up horse feet? I guess we then run them into a wireless MIDI transmitter from which point it should be easy to separate them into distinct notes or sounds. But I don't fully understand how these triggers work.

Thanks for any help,

Walker

blue hell · Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject:

Walker,

I'll move this thread to the DIY section in the hope that will get some replies there.

GrangeGrover · Joined: Sep 07, 2008 Posts: 4 Location: Asheville

thanks!

Antimon · Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject:

Just a thought: you might be able to use accelerometers for detecting steps. I know of products where they have implemented algorithms for using an accelerometer as a step counter, though I don't know the algorithm. You might be able to get some extra fun data for generating sound out of the three axes.

The thing about this solution is that the hardware is there in Nintendo's wiimote controllers. They send data over bluetooth, and applications exist to recieve this data on a computer (I know of OSCulator, there are probably other apps as well). What's left is to write an application (in ChucK, Java or anything else that can receive OSC messages) that can transform the xyz curves into steps. This, admittedly, might not be a completely straightforward task, but one might be able to record the movements of the hooves first, analyse the result and then build an alogrithm on that.

/Stefan