[ITS 2009 Demo] TouchTones - Multi-User Collaborative Music Composer

TouchTones lets up to four people create music collaboratively on Microsoft Surface. You don't need to know anything about music to make something that sounds beautiful. Start an instrument playing by touching a colored spinner, change the arrow directions on the grid to change the melody, and that's about it! TouchTones provides an immediate and enjoyable musical experience for any small group. TouchTones can be learned with only a few seconds of exploration or by viewing its integrated help video. From there, additional features emerge through play. Create tricky melody paths through the note grid, or use multiple fingers and play TouchTones like a keyboard. Tested with users from age 4 to age 60, TouchTones opens up either minutes or hours of enjoyment, for as few as one user or even a whole family. Touchtones is a collaborative, multi-touch, multi-user, grid-based music sequencer that is being released as freeware for Microsoft Surface. It has four instruments distributed across four octaves, all playing to a master tempo. Sounds can be triggered by user- controlled animated "sprites" or by simply pressing a colored button and pressing one of the icons on the grid at the same time. The patterns on the grid produce melody, and anyone can alter the melody, even while it's playing. Volume and reset controls help to round out the simple and wholly visual user interface. While TouchTones comes with a clean, modern design and a set of pleasant sounds, it has been designed to be reskinnable. Both the sounds and visuals can be completely customized to match any brand, mood, or theme.

by
Darren David , Stimulant
Lee Granas , Stimulant
Jules Konig , Stimulant
Nathan Moody , Stimulant
Joshua Santangelo , Stimulant

www.its2009.org

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ITS
• 2009
• multi-touch
• multitouch
• video
• demo
• surface
• tabletops
• and
• interactive
• surfaces
• cool
• canada
• banff

[koopanodle]

That's probably the coolest music app I've ever seen. So much better than garage band!