WEEK 4: 2/3 – 2/7

The penultimate week before quarters, this week we concentrated on giving our deliverable direction. To this end, we identified what equipment we would be requiring to successfully input analog sound and convert it to MIDI signals. We debated for a while if we actually needed to get MIDI signals or if we could do with pulling pitch and amplitude of the music being played. Internally in the team we decided that converting sound to MIDI signals would give us more freedom to play with the music, as then we would be able to identify each note. Once again, we got in touch with Dave Purta who helped us in identifying portable equipment that could convert analog sound to MIDI signals. We also contacted Prof. Riccardo Schulz at the School of Music to get his recommendations and opinions about the equipment we should use.

Monday was a busy day. We started the week by shooting for our team photo. It was an enjoyable experience, as we got to play around and pose in the green screen room. On the same day, we had a branding critique, where we got feedback on the posters and half-sheet designs that Nayoung had made. They were much appreciated with only minor feedback about text. We also attended a playtesting workshop hosted by Jessica Hammer, where we learnt many valuable tips and tricks on how to conduct a workshop. Seeing how playtesting would be a great guide for us in the coming weeks, this session was very informative.

Christina made MIDI mock-ups for all the four movements, with quick turnaround. She also started work on analysing the music according to the notes being played by each instrument and graphing the result. These will help our tech team greatly to gauge what sort of load the visual computing will have. The MIDI files served another great use. Speaking of playtests, we decided to have our first ‘playtest’. Seeing how the team had listened to the music multiple times and already formed opinions, we wanted to gather some more naive feedback to guide our visual direction. To this end, we had two days of playtests, which gave us varied feedback.

We’re working on getting some prototypes ready by the quarters next week. Victor, Michael and Wei are all working on three different prototypes in order to have maximum variety. We’re in the process of procuring some equipment that would allow us to test these prototypes.