Feedback
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
Did a brief presentation yesterday to get feedback on the new user controls and screen setups. Its still a bit text heavy, and there’s a few things I’m going to be cutting out and redoing. Right now, I’m focusing on making the new controls for the visualizer work, as well as working on adding drag and drop capabiliies. The next part I’m planning to tackle is to figure out the bug in my code that won’t allow you to change the vocals AND the drum part (I think I have both sets of buttons setting their values to the same variable, so the playback only plays 1 of the 2 tracks). There’s still some other button issues to work out, and after that I’ll be working more with the audio to build the complete nine inch nails remix portion, and then start on the umphrey’s mcgee part.
Last night I met up with a professional graphic designer while checking out studio / office space that I might be renting with a few other freelancers over the summer, and I showed him the beta version of my project. He had some really good feedback and also commented that it is too text heavy. He said that he will help me out with any graphic design issues and is providing great feedback as to the visual direction of all the screens. I’m planning on leaving the design alone for now to focus on the scripting, and fine tune the design after I get everything working 100%.
Updates
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve come up with a few sketches of what I’m planning on doing for the gallery space (although haven’t scanned them in to post). Today we went over the overall layout of everyone’s projects, and some good points were brought up about how to change my initial idea to have it more of an open area, rather than just screens on a wall. I’m also going to be using iMacs rather than laptops, and still plan on using one large LCD screen. The iMacs are going to be setup on 4 podiums, all facing inwards so that everyone else will have to walk up close to see whats going on. Chris Garvin gave me the idea of having all of the electrical cords hanging from the ceiling and almost making a “tent” frame out of the wires - kind of to embrace the wires rather than trying to hide them. Even if the project does work out online, I’m still planning on running everything locally rather than online so that people won’t have to deal with load times in the gallery.
New user controls, intro screen, and instruction help
Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized
After talking with Katherine today, I came up with the idea of having a tool bar at the bottom which would display necessary instructions on certain screens. It will also serve as a place to select photos, movie clips, etc.. to include with the visuals. That helps out with the issue of using the keyboard and should avoid some confusion. Checkout the shots below and let me know what you think:
Please leave me some feedback or tell me in class what you think of this! Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized Got a lot of good feedback during the presentation yesterday. I’m glad to get fresh pairs of eyes to take a look at it, since I know the control scheme inside of out, and haven’t realized that its going to be difficult to grasp for a first time user. I’m working on creating an additional intro screen to introduce the concept of the site, as well as have the instructions explained one step at a time on each screen. Rob came up with a great idea of instead of just having next and previous arrows to navigate, to create a sequence of buttons for each step so that they can jump from any screen they need to, as well as know what step they are on. I’m thinking of adding in a “how to” video to the front page, although most likely won’t create that until the project is closer to being finished. Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized I finally figured out the hardest part of the actionscript coding that is the most important aspect to the project. I had to combine about 4 different tutorials to figure it out, but managed to make it so you can preview each track and select it, then have your selections play back for the visual screen. As of writing this, I only have it set for the drum parts but plan on having the entire nine inch nails track fully remixable (is that a word?) by next week. I’m having fun playing around with it and will post a beta version online for everyone else to checkout for feedback. Other than that, I’ve designed a new interface for the main screen. You can preview the song, goto the artist website, read their bio, or buy the album. Here is a screenshot below:
Click the image above for a larger version. I’d really appreciate people’s feedback on this, in terms of the content, colors, style, typography, etc… what needs improvement? what would you like to see included or taken away? Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized Their management just emailed me back (quick response!) saying that I can use a track from the album “Mantis” (which was just released last week) as well as their album artwork and live photography! These guys are one of my favorite bands and I’m excited to have them on board. Take a minute to listen to some of their songs (which you’ll be able to remix in April!) here: Umphrey’s McGee Official Website. Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized I’ve contacted the band Umphrey’s McGee about using a song from their new album “Mantis” in the project, which hopefully they’ll be excited to be apart of, especially since they could drive a LOT of traffic to my project once the site launches. I’m working on contacting many other bands (from garage bands to nation-wide touring bands) and hopefully will have a variety of music to accommodate everyone’s music interests. In other news, a few features that I had always thought of in the back of my mind when first conciving the project as well as features that people had suggested/requested are being looked into. As of now, a lot of people want to be able to save and share their remixes, which is fine, although legally for a lot of the songs I plan on using, the bands may not grant permission for people to actually save their creations to their hard drives. What if someone takes their remixes, burns them to a CD, and sells them for a profit? It’s something I’m looking into, and I think the only way to have it fully work that way is if it was all music that I created on my own and waived all my rights to allow people to do this. The problem with that is not everyone may be into the style of music I write Another legal issue arises from a suggestion where people can add their own track from their hard drive to use in their remix (such as themselves playing drums or guitar). First of all, I’m not sure how many people would really take the time to do that and how useful it would really be. Secondly, if someone uploads a Britney Spears vocal track to mix with one of these songs, no one has the rights to use that track and there isn’t an efficient way to monitor the use of copyrighted material. What I am considering however, is the use of an external microphone for people who want to sing over their remix. They could either mute the original vocal track or keep it on and sing along with it. It seems pretty easy to program and I think it would be a good solution to offer people adding their own original music to the mixes. Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized Just wanted to post an update highlighting the current updates to my project from winter break. I recieved a lot of valuable feedback from the final presentation at the end of last semester and have had some time to process it all and think about what changes and improvements can be made to the project. I’ve started thinking about having this as a downloadable program, rather than specifically an online only application. The reasoning behind this is that with all of the tracks that are going to be available to remix, we’re looking at very long load times. I would still keep the interactmix.com website, but structure it as an instruction page, gallery of people’s creations, and as a place to download the application. I’ve also looked into creating a bit torrent file for the final release as a way to save on bandwith as well as open it up to an audience that might be browsing bit torrent search engines looking for music remixing software. I’ve done a lot of thinking about the gallery space that I’d like to have the project setup as, and am hoping to visit many more galleries in the coming months to refine the look and feel. As of now, I’m planning on having around 4 laptops setup either on tables or small podiums, and most likely no chairs so that they can casually come up to the space and start remixing right away. These computers would all have headphones so that they can immerse themselves in their music without making too much noise to disrupt the other gallery spaces. I am also planning on having either a projector or large screen monitor with external speakers, so that a group of people can use it and all hear the music, or else if people would like to see a demonstration first before jumping behind the controls for themselves. Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized I’ve put together a pre-alpha build of the interactMix application. You can check it out at http://blog.chrismcelroydesigns.com/interactmix As of now, all you have to do is click anywhere to advance to the next screen. Currently, you can’t select different tracks to remix with and can only listen to the original recording. The visuals are samples of different scenes I’m putting together, although in this preview they are all just appearing at once. The sound isn’t working for the online version, since I have to figure out a way to reduce the file size without sacrificing quality. Expect another update soon. Posted by Chris | Filed under Uncategorized Haven’t posted to this blog in awhile on purpose. After my presentation and feedback from everyone, I took some time to do some research on the state of digital music and realized that I’d like to stay away from music distribution on the web. The new direction of the project is going to be an interactive music video, in which you can remix the tracks as well as interact with the video elements themselves. An example of this is The Arcade Fire’s music video for neon bible. You can click and interact with the objects that appear as the music progresses, and the scene changes as well. What it does not have is the ability to remix the song, which I am going to include (such as changing the bass line from a rock style to a reggae style bass line). As of now, I’m working on different visualizers and effects to include. I’m working with a specific song at the moment, but would hope to create a general framework so that any band could take their multi track files, replace them and use their own images in the video. Feedback on this idea is appreciated, and I’ll be going more in depth into the concept during my next presentation. Thanks.
About screen
Visualizer adding movie clips screen
Yesterday’s presentation
Got it working + new main screen
Umphrey’s McGee update
New music + legal issues
Start of Spring semester
Pre-Alpha build of interactMix
Change of project direction