Hardware tinkering

Mounting sensors, actuators and interfaces involves some mechanical engineering and may require ingenuity. For basic prototyping, scaffolding could be provided by styrofoam and similar materials such as (balsa)wood from eg. Michael's that are easily cut and glued so as to form structures in/on which the items can be mounted/placed. 3D printing offers a wealth of possibilities.

Wires and wireless

For the USB-microDig, regular/passive USB extension cables upto 6ft or longer ones that are powered/active work fine, or for even longer distances use USB cable extenders from eg. APC, IOGear, CablesToGo or Icron. Also, wireless USB devices or TCP/IP-based (WiFi or ethernet) USB device servers, eg. from IOGear, should work with the USB-microDig (v7.10/7.1 or higher). To extend your MIDI cable, use a MIDI Solutions Thru box or a MLA-XLR MIDI Line Amplifier or go via RS422 with EES LDM - 4 or go via Ethernet . For wireless MIDI, try BLE-MIDI (MIDI over Bluetooth Low Energy), supported on MacOS and Windows 10. Here's some info how to connect to iPhone and iPad with a wired MIDI interface, but you can also send MIDI over Bluetooth to an iPhone or iPad. There are a number of wireless MIDI hardware devices, see eg. AirPower2, Missing Link, MIDIJet Pro, MidiStream, WIDI-X8, MidAir. To extend or improve the range of your Bluetooth adapter, try a long range access point from eg. BlueGiga, AirCable or BlueOne.

Mapping and routing

To make your I-CubeX data appear as keyboard strokes, try our keycode/string mapper. For more sophisticated (conditional) re-mapping of your I-CubeX data to different MIDI messages, or to make your I-CubeX data appear as keyboard strokes or mouse movements, or to map to other Windows messages, use MIDI translator Pro. Another option is ICON (Input Configurator). For MacOS, there's MIDIPipe or try JunXion or MIDI Stroke. Also, look into OSCulator and go wild with OSC. For Virtual Joystick mapping functionality, check PPJoy. You are probably using MIDI Yoke as a virtual MIDI port to route your I-CubeX sensor data, but there's also LoopMIDI, LoopBe1 (which only provides one port though) and Jackaudio, which is actually primarily for audio signal routing but they have a great list of (mainly Linux) audio applications. NADA and iStuff are software layers to help you use input devices in all kinds of software apps. Need to work on multiple computers with MIDI programs, but without going through MIDI ? Route the MIDI data with ipMIDI or MIDIoverLAN CP or simply by setting up a network session in the MIDI Studio of the Audio MIDI utility on MacOS. More MIDI over ethernet solutions are available from KISS box.

Software tinkering tools

The following is all about Visual Programming Languages. When we first started this section it was easy because for realtime visual programming environment for all kinds of media there basically was only Max, a useful piece of software for I-Cubists because we support it with a variety of tools.

There are a number of Max-alike softwares. Pure Data is one of the most well-known softwares that runs on many platforms. jMax is a Java based version of Max that runs on Unix and Linux.

There are now a lot of realtime interactive programming environments for video, graphics, audio, OSC, MIDI and other media and I/O with a "dataflow" GUI. For example, TouchDesigner, PraxisLive, Vuo, Isadora, vvvv, Gephex, Bidule, NodeRed, CPS, Open Sound World, MusicKit, Algorithmic Composer, Infinity.

Then there lots of coding environments, such as SuperCollider, a real time audio synthesis programming language. Very popular, for all kinds of media: Processing and OpenFrameworks, for which we have made an Addon.

Music, sound and other noisy devices

There's lots of information on MIDI and MIDI. And here are resources if you can't make up your mind about synthesizers, sound cards or headphones. Oh yes: some info about Linux and MIDI/sound, and another great list of (mainly Linux) audio applications. If you want to make some noise, the quick and dirty way, try Sound Forum Synth (use it together with ASIO4all if you don't have an ASIO sound card). Anyways, perhaps you are into wind synthesizers ?

Reason is some sort of groove sequencer that submits to MIDI control (here's how to control Reason with I-CubeX). Also check this: PopForge. If this groove thang has you going, check out the Dance tech site. And now that you're going at it you might consider I-CubeX-ing Reaktor, Traktor, Acid, Logic Audio, Cakewalk, Cubase, Absynth, Tassman (here's how to control Tassman with I-CubeX) or Outi or ixiQuarks or FAUST. Cantabile is another nice piece of software for I-CubeX-ed performers. Just to name a few sound/music performance/composition/design tools. BTW, don't forget this handy virtual audio cable tool.

Video, image processing and animation

Jitter is a set of externals for Max environment that expand it into the image processing domain. Really cool. Note that GridFlow, Framestein and PDP do the same for PD.

Or look into TouchDesigner, PraxisLive, Vuo, vvvv and Gephex as well. Image/ine is a MIDI controlled video processing tool. A video processing tool: CL Studio Live. Isadora is a graphical programming environment that provides interactive control over digital media, with special emphasis on real-time manipulation of digital video (see a great tutorial on how to use I-CubeX with Isadora). But there's also Quartz Composer ! Apple hid it well inside the MacOS X developers tools. Control videoloops with ChaChaCha. But wait, there is more: the BigEye tool and Wechselspieler software. Houdini is a procedural graphics software package that takes MIDI input and check Touch software as well. But if you succeed in adding PyPortMIDI to Blender you will save a shitload of money. But then you might consider Fluxus. Director (here's how to control Director with I-CubeX and check this page) is software to meld animations, graphics, video and other visual media. To make it work with I-CubeX try Xmidi, MIDIio, or SequenceXtra, Xtras that help you get Director to talk MIDI commands. Now, about animation: did we mention Maya ? It also takes MIDI input using MayaMIDI.

PS, if you are into VJ-ing check the Audiovisualizer site and VJForums. VISP works fine with MIDI, like Light jams. GarageCube's Modul8 does it all and Resolume maybe even more. Or is VidVox even more advanced ? What about Live! (here's how to control Live with I-CubeX) and Bomb ? Amazing stuff. BTW find out more about "Live Experimental Video" on the LEV list. And now for something really different: Onadime. Check it out !! Ah yes: MIDIPoet Finally, we would like to invite everyone to experiment with EyesWeb and Fresco. Lately there's been a buzz about Flash (and Processing). Now you can control Flash with I-CubeX too ! There are many ways to control Flash animations with MIDI, eg. use this FlashServer with Max/MSP or if only MIDI output is needed: FlashMIDI SDK and then there's also the MIDI-XML tool that comes with VISP. Another tool of interest: Onyx, and not sure where to put this: PopForge. PS, did you check Ventuz out ? Slick ! If you need to make a networked multi-projector show, take a look at Watchout.

Lights, robotics and more action

Here's where you want to check into LanBox. How about a list of companies related to the show control field (e.g. if you want to get into pyrotechnics). QLab and TJShow also take MIDI triggers. A random question: have you tried Topaz' MIDI controllable dimmers ? Or just go Light-O-Rama, or try the MIDI-MPC2, FreeStyler, DMXControl, LightJam. Check out Madrix LED lighting software. And this video processor box: robotics. If you want to turn MIDI into analog voltages you're looking for a "MIDI to CV converter" (sorry we haven't found an exhaustive list yet).

Games

This section needs a few more entries but we thought you'd wanna know about Unity3D, a game development platform which has a serial port interface, and with Keijiro's MIDI input for Unity you can connect I-CubeX sensors. No Sweat !

Research and scientific analysis

If you're a behavioural researcher, Observer XT and Morae are software packages for animal/human behaviour analysis and usability testing.

For numerical computations and other scientific calculations with your I-CubeX sensor data, look into Mathematica and VisX, Matlab and SimuLink, SciLab or FreeMat for scientific analysis and visualization. There's also LabView. If you want to do some I-CubeX-ed experiments while in an orbit around the earth, ask masten space systems for help how to get your gear into space. Sandy Antunes wrote a book about getting your own satellite instrumented with (I-CubeX) sensors.

Input devices, alternate controllers and the like

Here you go: a truly exhaustive list of input devices. Then there's Mark Vail's overview of alternative controllers. And read this book ! Don't stop there because here's a great overview of interactive music technology and a list of alternate controller hard/software (and another). If all this feels not surreal enough, go virtual and try a virtual instrument. Do you play or develop an innovative or unusual musical instrument ? Please add it to the TIEM survey !

About interactive, media and electronic art

Here's a resource page for an interactivity course and another real techie page for interactive art technologists and for topics related to dance and technology look at XSpasm.com too and find a lot of other interesting things as well. Need an artist-engineer to figure out how to apply I-CubeX in your work ? Contact Harvestworks. Consider expanding your solo performing with technology.

Find a way to pay your way to these events. Did you browse artnetweb's resource page ? You might also like to read l'installation interactive (in French).

More info ...

We try to keep this page up-to-date but perhaps you still want more info ? Contact us, because not everything is on the web and we may just know the info you need. In fact, why don't you also post on the Cube Culture forum so that you can discuss your query with your fellow I-Cubists.