Ototo musical invention kit

nerved's icon

Hey guys,

Sorry if this is a little spammy/self promotional - I've created a project that I think would've helped me out when I started working in interactive sound 7-8 years... and this is where I'd be looking for information. My name is Mark McKeague, I'm interaction designer / sound artist now founded a company called Dentaku.

We've created a product called Ototo, which is a 'musical invention kit'. This allows you to connect sensors and touch inputs to interact with sound, either on the inbuilt synth or over USB MIDI. Our idea is to make it easier to get started with electronics and sound, but also to allow flexibility for people to do more complicated projects.

Have a look at our Kickstarter page, and if you like the project we'd really appreciate the support.

Thanks!
Mark

brendan mccloskey's icon

Hi
very much looking forward to seeing this in Atlanta in 2 weeks! I've been through the entire semi-finalists links, and was very impressed by the elegance and simplicity of Ototo. Definitely a winner!!

Brendan

nerved's icon

Thanks Brendan! It's encouraging to hear!

We just released a new video demonstrating the Ototo controlling Ableton Live via MIDI. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJzJLVQXl48

I really want to get some time to play around and do some experiments in Max, but got to keep up the the PR :).

Mark

vichug's icon

Is it like an integrated, music-only, user-friendly Arduino ?

nerved's icon

You can look it that way, it could replace some uses of the Arduino such as bringing sensor data into the computer.

Our intention was to provide at all-in-one package that offers things that hard/or take some time to setup: stable capacitive sensing, a range of sensors that work out of the box, onboard sound generation and USD MIDI control.

thanks,
Mark

Andro's icon

If that baby can get raw sensor data into max/msp then I'll be ordering it straight away !
Will it be possible to use 2 units and have them recognised as separate devices in Max ?

nerved's icon

Yes out of the box it sends the sensor data as MIDI CC messages for each of the sensor inputs. You can just use the [ctin] object to receive the messages. Multiple Ototos connected would appear as separate devices that you can select between in Max. This would be the easiest way to do it.

Note that MIDI will works at a lower resolution (0-127) than the raw data from the sensor (well analog to digital convertor) which is 0-1024. I'm looking at ways to best support this, definitely is possible though.

Mark