So this week, in addition to not having a camera to take new video with, we’ve been working on expanding the abilities of the V1, including the ability to play scales and chords. While before we were looking into ways to connect the controller via USB to reprogram it, allowing you re-map the buttons on the controller, now we’ve incorporated a method of re-mapping the controller in-game, allowing you to pick which chords you want to correspond to which buttons in the game. This afternoon, we’ll try to get the camera working, and hopefully we’ll get a better video out soon…
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14AugDevelopment, Progress Update Comments Off
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11AugDevelopment, Progress Update Comments Off
So after a weekend away, we’re back tonight with some cool stuff. Basically, some thinking, some re-writing of some code, a few added functions, and now we’re able to use the V1 to play Guitar Hero using either chords or notes on a scale for the buttons. Of course, the notes you’ll be playing still won’t be the actual notes of the songs on the game, but it will help you work on note and chord transistions, hopefully in a way that’s more fun/motivating than just having to play a lot of chord transitions.
I have to admit, once you start using chords or notes, it makes playing the game a lot harder. When testing it out, even playing easy with chords mapped G Major to the green button, C Major to red, and E Major to yellow, I still failed shockingly quickly… Of course, I’m just about no good at the real guitar, and I’ve been doing a lot more guitar engineering than actual guitar playing this summer! Maybe this’ll start me practicing the guitar again…
Well, I’ll try and get a video up in the next few days. The only camera I’ve got around here is having some problems with the sound quality, so I want to be able to take a nicer video than I can right now.
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24Jul
*cough*
So I’m an idiot, and wrote this all up a few weeks ago, but forgot to actually post it.
For the past week or two, this is a little something that we’ve been working on-
The OpenChord.org L-Series
The OpenChord L Series.
This project is an easier, simpler version of the V1, and it converts the Ashely Rock Axe guitar into a stringed instrument by modifying only the neck. It’s a project that takes fewer supplies, no string-insulation, and stays looking good fairly easily. Also, it doesn’t require 2 guitars. In the next couple of days, we’ll be posting instructions on Instructables.
Oh, and with the L-Series, we’re going to be making some significant updates to the code, the biggest being the start of a project to do more advanced things with note-recognition. Basically, we’ll be looking into settings that will let you map notes and chords to guitar hero buttons, so for example, if you finger a C-chord, the controller will register that as the Green button, and so on. Or map the buttons to a scale, so you can play Guitar Hero or Rock Band and actually be practicing chord changes and scales.
Also, other big news on the technical front. While the L-Series will be using the Arduino microcontrollers, we’re shifting the rest of the line over to the Atmel AVR processors. For more information about this switch and the reasoning behind it, check out the Developent page.
