billpendry.com blog

GarageRockBand

Bill Pendry — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:12:17 +0000

I was trying to hook my PS3 Rock Band drum kit up to my Mac, with the goal of using it as a MIDI controller for GarageBand.

It appears in System Profiler as:

Harmonix Drum Kit for PlayStation(R)3:

Version: 10.00
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Licensed by Sony Computer Entertainment America
Product ID: 0×0210
Vendor ID: 0×12ba

Good start.

I installed GamePad Companion, and it detected the kit. I mapped different buttons to different keys, hit Start and switched to TextEdit. Hitting the drums gave me this:

2111111111111111111111111111444444333333333333332222222111111111111111111111222222222555555555555555555555555555555555555

Sweet. Each pad (and pedal) gave me a different key. The key repeat rate was really high, but it was working at least. So we end up with:

Button 1 = Blue (3)
Button 2 = Green (4)
Button 3 = Red (1)
Button 4 = Yellow (2)
Button 5 = Orange (Pedal)

As for the controller buttons on the kit (could come in useful!), the four symbol buttons all mapped to the same keys as the drum pads. The rest are:

Button 9 = Select
Button 10 = Start
Button 13 = PS Button

And finally, the d-pad maps to the “Hat Switch” element.

After this, I went looking for software to turn GamePad Companion’s HID input signals into MIDI signals. But after a few minutes I realized I didn’t need to.

I was already getting the drums to run my keyboard, and GarageBand has a feature to play the MIDI instruments with the keyboard. All I needed to do was map everything correctly and I should be good to go!

I opened GarageBand and set the default track to Drum Kits > Rock Kit. Then I turned on Musical Typing. You don’t get the whole musical keyboard with MT, just an 11-key section you can move up and down along a virtual 88-key keyboard. I moved the keyboard section down until the kick drum was available, then noted what keys where what:

A = kick
S,D = snares
F,G,H,J,K,L = toms
; = crash
and more…

I ended up choosing kick, snare, two toms and one cymbal, since the other cymbal I wanted was in a inactive area of the keyboard. I re-mapped the keys in GPC, switched back to GB and gave it a try. Success! Samples were triggered correctly, the fast key repeat rate didn’t cause any problems, and latency was basically nil.

Here’s a quick clip of Jake trying them out:

I *think* you can customize the keysets for Musical Typing, I’ll look into it more when I get more time. Customizing the MT keyboard layout would get you around the “can’t use samples from hidden areas of the full keyboard” problem. Once that’s figured out, this should make for a good RB-to-GB solution.

UPDATE 2007/12/8:
Several people have asked about the XBox 360 drum kit.

I don’t have access to Rock Band for 360, but I do have the Wireless Gaming Receiver to play with. I installed Colin Munro’s XBox 360 Controller Mac OS X Driver and got a controller synced up with it on my PowerBook.

(It simply would not work on my Power Mac G4, and looking around teh internets I see that the WGR can be pretty flakey. Hmm, Microsoft made something that often doesn’t work correctly… that’s odd.)

After getting the 360 controller successfully connected to the Mac, I opened GamePad Companion to see that it had found the controller. I mapped Buttons 1-4 (the A,B,X,Y buttons) to the A,S,D,F keys and then switched to GarageBand. The buttons successfully triggered the keypresses and played the drum kit samples.

I can’t say for sure that this means the drum kit will also work OK, but it is very promising. If anyone can try it out and leave a comment if it works, it would be much appreciated.

I’d also like to thank everyone who posted a link to this article:
Digg (this post)
Digg (video)
Gizmodo
XLR8YourMac.com
MacNN
Rock Band Forums (here, “Superchivo” demonstrates that this technique will also work with the guitar controller)
Create Digital Music

SO ENERGETIC

Bill Pendry — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 03:57:41 +0000

UNCOMFORTABLY ENERGETIC!!!!!

Posted while listening to: Jaw, Knee, Music from the album “Rock Against Bush Vol. 1″ by NOFX

Shadow Monsters

Bill Pendry — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 01:40:05 +0000

Click through to see video of this shadow-puppet-enhancer. It’s wicked sweet.

Video: Shadow Monsters (Gameplay?) Is A Bit Amazing – Kotaku

Posted while listening to: Collision from the album “Album Of The Year” by Faith No More

Horse-Powered Car

Bill Pendry — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:55:20 +0000

“Q: What is this Naturmobil?

A: This is a vehicle, just like any other vehicle, but with no engine, and in fact, is run by a horse.”

www.fleethorse.com

Posted while listening to: Satisfied? from the album “Adbusters – Live Without Dead Time” by J-Live

Southern Charm

Bill Pendry — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:37:19 +0000

Posted while listening to: Master Your High from the album “Accepted Eclectic” by Aceyalone

Professional Artists Finish Childrens’ Drawings

Bill Pendry — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:40:13 +0000

UPDATE: I fixed the link (it had changed), these are so good that it’s going back to the top!
These are great… be sure to follow the link below to see more.
Amazing Filtered Things: drawings: Children vs Artists. Children started to draw, artists continued

Posted while listening to: Buddy Holly from the album “Moog Cookbook” by Moog Cookbook

Resizing Images Without Distortion

Bill Pendry — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:03:58 +0000

Image analysis algorithm to stretch/compress images without obvious distortion. Nifty.

Innovation: Smart Scene Carving Resizes Images Without Distortion – Gizmodo

Posted while listening to: Welcome, Ghosts (Adem Mix) from the album “All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (Remixes)” by Explosions In The Sky

Huge Flying V Guitar

Bill Pendry — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:00:29 +0000

DUDE!

Posted while listening to: Robotronic from the album “A New Machine For Living” by Turing Machine

Touch Table Musical Instrument

Bill Pendry — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:44:22 +0000

Posted while listening to: Sheep from the album “Animals” by Pink Floyd

“Thriller” as performed by Filipino inmates

Bill Pendry — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:28:53 +0000

“Thriller” as performed by inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center

“Japanese Tetris”

Bill Pendry — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:41:35 +0000

The Game Show Channel should have “Japan Night.” I’d watch it.

So Wacky: ‘Japanese Tetris’ Makes Deal or No Deal Look Totally Tame – Gizmodo

Posted while listening to: A Moment Of Clarity from the album “The Campfire Headphase” by Boards Of Canada

Formation of Nodes

Bill Pendry — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:50:50 +0000

ICIXSound.com – eD TV

Bososoku Parade Lap

Bill Pendry — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:44:42 +0000

Posted while listening to: Rock & Roll Evacuation from the album “SeÃ±or Smoke” by Electric Six

iPods are popular.

Bill Pendry — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 01:49:10 +0000

Posted while listening to: Cryogenic Sleep from the album “Frigid Forms Sell” by Milemarker

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD

Bill Pendry — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 22:15:57 +0000

The above name is not a joke, but yes, it could be.

I used to be a big Street Fighter fan so I thought that this was pretty cool. Capcom is doing an “HD” remake of SF2 with all redrawn art. It looks really fantastic, check it:

View a full res image here:
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Sprite Comparison – Kotaku

Posted while listening to: I Buy The Drugs from the album “Switzerland” by Electric Six

Wireframe Car

Bill Pendry — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 22:41:17 +0000

An artist created a full-scale Subaru Impreza wireframe sculpture… and it’s really cool.

Winding Road Â» Archive Â» Wonder Woman, Your Car Is Readyâ€¦:

Posted while listening to: Garden Of Light from the album “In The Absence Of Truth” by Isis

Fox News, Hard at Work

Bill Pendry — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:47:45 +0000

Great collection of Fox News television and web screengrabs showing how fair and balanced they are.

Welcome to Pottersville: Fox News at Its Finest

Don’s Guns

Bill Pendry — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:49:29 +0000

MySpace Phishing

Bill Pendry — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 07:02:33 +0000

If you use MySpace, please read the following…

I’d seen a few spam comments around on MySpace, and also got one on my account from a friend. I saw a link to some information about the rash of hacked accounts on my Home page so I checked it out. There’s some interesting stuff in their worth checking out. The phishers use a look-alike of the MySpace “you must be logged in to do that” login page that is virtually identical to the real thing. You have to check the URL to see that the page is fake, and it would be very easy to be fooled if you weren’t paying attention.

MySpace page about phishing
Check out the example images. It looks like you are looking at the real login page but checking the address shows you that something isn’t right.

One of the commenters makes a very good point:

But the danger doesn’t end there. The person who stole your profile knows that you can always change your password and lock them out of your account. So now, they try to take over your profile entirely. If they see your email address ends in yahoo.com or hotmail.com, they go to your email login page and try to log in to your email account with the same password. Many people use the same password for their email account and their MySpace profile, and if you’re one of those people, now the thief has access to your email, too.

And check this out — once they have access to your email, they can start sending lost password requests to PayPal, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, eBay, or anywhere else you might have an account, and they can now reset your passwords on other systems, and even change the email address on your MySpace profile to their own address so you can never log in again!”

So it’s a really good idea to use a unique password for your email account, something that you don’t use anywhere else.

George Washington

Bill Pendry — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 16:55:45 +0000

This is pure genius! WATCH OUT FOR SWEARS.

Posted while listening to: Burning Down The House from the album “Stop Making Sense” by Talking Heads