Presentation Day!

I made some nice changes last night and this morning before the presentation today :)

Click here.

I added sounds to the buttons, needle dropping on the record, hiss while it's playing and the sound of the needle rubbing on the record when you reach the end.

I also changed the algorithm for cuing and needle movement so that they are based on an equation rather than hundreds of if statements... This method is much more accurate and would have been easier to create in the first place...

I re-mastered some of the songs to make sure the levels were all close to being the same and cut the bit rate quite a bit so that the whole thing would load faster. It now takes about 10 seconds rather than 60-90.

Good luck everyone! I'm looking forward to your projects today!

De-bugging and re-working

This week I've come across a couple of bugs that make my turntable function the wrong way, so I've had to rethink what exact mouse action will trigger an event. The problem was that every time the user clicks anywhere on the screen, the song would restart. I fixed this by making it only when the user clicks the needle head. I've added cuing to the needle head for the first three songs so that the user can skip through by dropping the needle on different sections of the record. The songs now load from website urls in order and plays the next song after the first has finished playing.

I have added highlights around the record to show which is playing, but I'd like to also have the rings light up as you roll over them as well.

You can see my progress so far at http://www.jmichael.tv/vinyl.swf

You'll need flash player to check it out.

I would still like to add photographs for each of the components and rework the cuing so that I don't have to run hundreds of lines of "if statements," that it will work more like a cue bar in youtube or quicktime.

Realistic Goals

It's seventh week already and I'm realizing that too much work is to be done in the amount of time I have left before the end of the quarter. I'd like to re-evaluate what is most important for this project and focus on that. My original plan for this quarter was to re-make my portfolio website incorporating interactive flash interfaces to enhance the experience of looking through my work I've made at UCSD.

This week I've added a song to the record player that you can choose where it plays by where you drop the needle. I've also figured out how to create bounds for the needle arm so it doesn't swing around unrealistically. This will be the interface for selecting songs on my audio page. I will add more songs to be selectable, a track list on the record and a text display of the song that is playing.

Working through the Technical Details

I have gotten a copy of Flash CS4 to enhance my ability to manipulate audio. They have implemented better audio handling methods as well as ways to generate audio and perform DSP. I have also made an Infrared LED bar similar to the LED Sensor bar that Nintendo makes for their Wii remote to add another level of control. After testing my makeshift IR LED's I've found that the power and range of my two LED's isn't as powerful as the actual sensor bar, so I just went out and bought the sensor bar. I can still use my LED's for head tracking or pen tracking, but the actual sensor bar is much more powerful and easier to use.

I need to focus more now on the appearance and functionality of my flash instruments first, then incorporate the Wii remote. Most users will experience my project with a mouse and a keyboard anyways, so it will be my first priority.

I hope to make the audio work the way I want in the next week so I can replace my movie clips with actual photographs for next week. After that, I will implement the wii remote controls.

Extended capabilities

This week I've been brainstorming different ways to make an interactive website that incorporates some of my interests while extending the capabilities of different objects. For instance, instead of just having a turntable that plays a song straight through, give the user the ability to select how far into a song for the needle to drop or skip between different songs just by moving the needle to the right place. This is like the normal functionality of a record player. Then, to extend its capabilities, I could incorporate a second or third arm. This way a familiar object has a whole new set of capabilities. I've also been thinking about different methods of control besides mouse input. Some ideas I've come up with are keyboard input for drums, where surrounding keys have different mallets that hit the drums, wii remote to control a theremin, xbox joystick to control the crank on a music box.

I have also been thinking about incorporating some of my other interests into my website including photography, biking, snow, etc. I could include a page that displays some of my photography with a reactive digital camera to scan through the photos or even take the user's photo if they have an attached web cam. Biking and snowboarding could be incorporated into pages that explain about me like a bio page or my blog. Before I get distracted with more ideas however, I should stay focused on the musical pages first and making those work as well as keeping the style consistent between the pages.

New Quarter, New Project

This quarter I'm going to shift gears. I would like to make a portfolio website to display the work I've created while at UCSD. Rather than creating a boring, html page with a biography, contact information and simple examples of audio and graphics that I've created, I'd like to present it in a fun and interesting way that will explain more about my style and interests. I will do this by creating an interactive and musical flash website.

The timeline:
2nd week-develop structure, style, and choose content
3rd week-photograph and photoshop images for animations
4th week-assemble images in flash and write code for animation
5th week-rinse and repeat for each separate page
6th week-record music/ sounds and eq/master sounds for a multitude of speaker systems
7th week-incorporate audio into the site
8th week-incorporate projects from other classes
9th week-ask for outside critiques
10th week-send website to possible employers!

(I have a placeholder html website now that will be available to those who do not have a flash player here: jmichael.tv. I will be tweaking the style and format of the html site to mimic the appearance of the flash site as well throughout the quarter.)

Possible formats:
-turntable
-drum set
-music box
-abstract instrument
-radio

Inspiration from holden outerwear website. Unfortunately last year's website has been taken down, but it is very similar to this year's site.