Kinect Hacked to Control Organ

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Evan

There are Kinect hacks, then there are Kinect hacks. This is one heck of a Kinect hack. An australian composer, who also happens to be a fan of the Kinect, decided that he would meld his two passions together into one mind-blowing technology demonstration. Using a 4 storey, 83 year old pipe organ and Microsoft’s killer XBox peripheral, he created an organ that was controlled by his motions rather than a keyboard.

The project is possible because the pipe organ was upgraded to support MIDI in the 1980’s.

Chris Vik, creator of this project, had previously made a custom program called KinectAR that turns your Kinect into a MIDI controller. He used it to make electronic dance music controlled by, well, dancing.

MIDI being MIDI, Vik is able to control any MIDI instrument with a Kinect, now, whether it is an old analog synth of a gigantic many-tonned monstrosity.

Vik teamed up with veteran singer Elise Richards for a new song composed for the organ. They played the piece at a town hall performance last November. You can catch a snippet of it below.

Vik’s wondrous Kinect hacks are made all the more impressive when you consider that he has only been toying with the Kinect since last April.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what the next hack he makes does.

If you want to give KinectAR a go for yourself, he offers it free online.