Brainwave hardware

I recently bought the MindSet from Neurosky. It's 200 bugs and only has one electrode.
It's simple to set up and there's a max external, which puts out Mindset's data (EEG Bands up to Gamma(40Hz), the raw wave, and two special values for attention and relaxation).

The reason I bought was that it's rather cheap and has an open API for developers.

But I'm not sure if i should recommend it. The (preprocessed) EEG band values seem to jump around pretty randomly. I don't any practical experience with EEG, so maybe i just don't know how to properly interpret the data.

The so called eSense values for attention and relaxation, which are processed by a closed properitory algorithm seem to work quite well.

I guess, if you want to do some serious stuff, you might want to check out Emotiv's EPOC headset, which looks a lot more attractive...

I have an Emotiv headset - and there is a free bridge/program for it called "mindyourOSC" that sends OSC signals quite easilly to MAX.

Ive not used it with MAX but only PURE DATA - It worked allright, but how it works sort of depends on what you want to do - these headsets dont have great accurcy for conscious control - I used the output of the headset to control sound timbre.

also Emotiv headsets dont come cheap.

Do you also have the EPOC SDK ?
It comes with a set of suites, which are supposed to learn and detect facial expressions, emotions and conscious thoughts.

I wonder how good they actually work...

Yeah I have the SDK version (more expensive)

The facial expressions worked 90% of the time just out of the box

The emotional suite: that has algorithm that are supposed to detect - meditation, long term excitation, short term excitation, frustration and consentration - It does do this ok, but it is hard to say how well and accuratly

The suite where you can consciously move a box is flaky but works - it is something one has to train (both the algorithm and your self) - I connected it to minecraft and played for 3 half hour sessions - cant say that it promised a smooth learning curve but the accuracy was maybe (60-70%)

I think these devices are interesting but the application for them has to be something novel (something you wouldnt want to use a joystick for for example) because if it is just about moving around the learning curve is to steap for the casual gamer.

Im gonna make some sort of patch/application in Max to try to discern how well the emotional suite works, but havent had time yet

Hi all

I'm reposting from another thread on this list re obtaining brainwaves from the Emotiv system (Research SDK).

Re MindYourOSC's it only gives you very abstracted data re mental/emotional state, and it sends this info out very slowly, once a second or something like that - not fast enough to feel very interactive.

I need to obtain alpha, theta and beta rhythms for a concert in a couple of weeks, and am looking for someone to build an FFT filter that will give me this data...

Here's info re a hack of MindYourOSCs - that transmits the raw data.
Any suggestions how we can progress this further?

/////

A friend of mine, David Morris-Oliveros has built a version of MindYourOSC that just transmits the raw EEG data from the headset (sum of all the contacts I think). Windows only sorry!

MindYourOSC Raw:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12129/Emotiv.zip

Install Note: First of all, try running the EmotivfilesMindYourOSCs.exe.
If it gives you an error, install Emotivvcredist_x86vcredist_x86.exe,
then try the executable again.
If that fails, you will need to install EmotivSetup.msi,
and then run it from
C:Program FilesCoDMind Your Own OSC RawMindYourOSCs.exe.

Ideally I'd like to implement FFT stuff in something like OpenVIBE
http://openvibe.inria.fr/documentation/unstable/Doc_FAQ.html

and build an OpenSoundContyrol object to use inside the OpenVibe Designer app.

In the mean time, any more ideas for using Max signal-based FFT object to obtain Brainwave Rhythms?

You can also use the np-epoc external from nonpolynomial labs,
which will give you the raw data of each electrode :

Here are some links for it :

some info :
http://www.nonpolynomial.com/externals/

last external (os 10.6) here :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nplabs/files/np_epoc/0.2/

and source code here :
https://github.com/qdot/np_epoc

The good thing is that it works even if you don't have the research sdk.

Don't forget the IBVA, which has its own Max object, MIDI outputs, and also a raw audio output if you want to do audio FFT processing yourself.

Hi all, trying stuff here, i can't open the link that Knut shared, please i'd like to try that, and what is exactely the IBVA Jesse?
Thanx
Alberto

Finally the np-epoc doesn't work on my system, either because it's said that it works only with the research and developer editions, but essentially because my os (Mac 10.6.8) doesn't like the library extension (which should be for 10.6)...