At the moment it’s just tracing the key, all I need now is to make it generate the tone instead.

My code is below:

var rowcount:int = 1;
var myTimer:Timer = new Timer(1000); // 1 second
myTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, SecondsPassed);

myTimer.start();

function SecondsPassed(event:TimerEvent):void {
//trace(“SecondsPassed() called @ ” + getTimer() + ” ms”);

trace (“On row number ” +rowcount);
if (rowcount==8)
{rowcount=0;
trace (“__________________”);
}

checkrow(rowcount);
rowcount++;
}

function checkrow(rowcount) {
if (rowcount==1){
trace (“Checking row 1″);
stage.addEventListener (KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, detectKeypress);

function detectKeypress (myevent:KeyboardEvent):void {
trace (“There’s a keypress going on.”);
if (myevent.keyCode==81){
// Q was pressed
trace (“Q is pressed”)};
if (myevent.keyCode==79){
// O was pressed
trace (“O is pressed”)};
if (myevent.keyCode==74){
// J was pressed
trace (“J is pressed”)};
if (myevent.keyCode==81){//edit /
// / was pressed
trace (“/ is pressed”)};
if (myevent.keyCode==113){
// q was pressed
trace (“q is pressed”)};
if(myevent.keyCode==97){
// a was pressed
trace (“a is pressed”)};
if(myevent.keyCode==112){
// a was pressed
trace (“a is pressed”)};
if(myevent.keyCode==__){//edit -
// – was pressed
trace (“- is pressed”)};
}//end function detectKeypress
}//end if rowcount 1

This code is called for the first row, of course, there are similar loops for each of the 8 rows.

I think to showcase the project properly, it makes sense to include the full process – the ideas, inspiration, and other projects too, as well as a demo of my Social Tone Matrix in action.

I’ve begun a sketch brainstorm of what I need to include:

The sound controls the intensity value for blue, green and red LEDS belonging to four BlinkM units. The arduino programming cycles through all three colors. There are also some transition effects, before switching colors it does one of four light effects in the color it is about to switch to…

I really like the smoothness of the transition, the whole project is done in a very sleek, naturally responsive way, it’s difficult to explain but have a look at the demo video:

p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZnJK6yU8z4

My scale that I have created is similar to a slendro scale (used on the gamelan instrument (similar to a Xylophone, played in Java – an island in Indonesia) (Here is a MIDI sample).

I chose to emulate this scale as it is one of the only pentationic scales (non-clashing) with roughly equally spaced intervals between the notes. This will make more sense from a user point of view, as the obvious steps in pitch will match the vertical position of the switches on the grid. (So a user standing on the bottom row would expect to create the lowest note, stepping up equally through 8 intervals, to the highest notes on the top rows.)

Here are the individual notes, all in .wav ready for Flash.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Here they are in all their glory – I’m so pleased with how they have turned out! The photo definately does not do them justice… so you’ll have to come to the degree show and pick one up for yourself!

I couldn’t get the two to acknowledge eachother, but after Simon’s fresh pair of eyes and about 1/2 hour discussion, experiments, and coding… the issue was with the flash sandbox not wanting to allow dynamic loading videos. AllowURL only allows straightforward youtube.com data, not the videos themselves. Anyway, after some interesting discussion and help from Simon, my 4D project works!

The videos are loading and autoplaying dynamically, based on the current headline! I am so so pleased!

These are the keycodes I’m using. Flash is running a loop of the 8 columns of my grid, watching out for these keys. Flash’s response is to generate the tones – the top row makes the highest pitched tone, down to the lowest at the  bottom row.

[Enter] – 13
[Esc] – 27
[Space] – 32
! – 33
” – 34
# – 35
$ – 36
% – 37
& – 38
‘ – 39
( – 40
) – 41
* – 42
+ – 43
, – 44
- – 45
. – 46
/ – 47
0 – 48
1 – 49
2 – 50
3 – 51
4 – 52
5 – 53
6 – 54
7 – 55
8 – 56
9 – 57
: – 58
; – 59
< – 60
= – 61
> – 62
? – 63
@ – 64
A – 65
B – 66
C – 67
D – 68
E – 69
F – 70
G – 71
H – 72
I – 73
J – 74
K – 75
M – 77
N – 78
O – 79
P – 80
Q – 81
R – 82
S – 83
T – 84
U – 85
V – 86
W – 87
X – 88
Y – 89
Z – 90
[ - 91
\ - 92
] – 93
^ – 94
_ – 95
` – 96
a – 97
b – 98
c – 99
d – 100
e – 101
f – 102
g – 103
h – 104
i – 105
j – 106
k – 107
l – 108
m – 109
n – 110
o – 111
p – 112
q – 113
r – 114
s – 115
t – 116
u – 117
v – 118
w – 119
x – 120
y – 121
z – 122
{ – 123
| – 124
} – 125
~ – 126