As I mentioned in the previous post for Capturing Movement in Sound, the GameTrak Controller is a device that I return to often. It uses USB, works consistently and provides an expressive range of movement using 360º control of two joysticks with tethers. If you are going to start using alternative devices for music it gives you many options and is simple to start with. You have the joysticks x and y controls but then you can pull out the tether to provide an additional z axis. It is a great device with theatricality built into it. Everyone who we showed the device to had a range of ideas for how it could be used.

The device was first introduced to me by SwanLorc as part of Ty Cerdd’s CoDi: Electronic. They showed us the patch that I still use today, linked below. The opportunity explored 6 different pieces written for SwanLorc and it was my first introduction to the possibilities of the device. Jenn Kirby, who was part of SwanLorc, at that time is someone to check out if you want to see new engaging ways to perform electronic music.

Connecting the GameTrak Controller to Max/MSP

If this post does not cover what you need to know, please leave a comment and i will try to answer it. I am presuming some knowledge with Max/MSP. The goal of this section is to help you connect the controller to Max and then I leave you to do whatever you would like with it.

Connecting the device is generally simple, or at least it was for my GameTrak controllers, and I have owned 3 to date. For other versions of the device, you may need to do a little bit of tinkering. Friends of mine have used the guidance from this site and a tiny little bit of soldering to get theirs to work. It all depends what version of GameTrak Controller that you are using.

When the device is plugged in, this patch receives the data in Max/MSP using the “hi” (human interface) object. This is the object that you use for connecting a variety of controllers to Max/MSP. Use the print object to see what data your device sends out and route it to whatever you want to do. In the patch above, this is hopefully done for you. I tend to run that as a separate patch, or else place it in a subpatcher and use sends to route the data where I want it to go. It is important that the GameTrak is plugged in before you open the patch. The data that you get is from 0 to 4095 on each of the axis. It is up to you how you want to map the data. The data is also quite steady, there are not many erratic jumps or things to smooth out compared to other devices. It is as simple as that.

Capturing Mvt into Sound: Exploring the Interactions: Zones

I chose the GameTrak controller as the first device to explore with Jodi. It has more presence than the accelerometers since the tethers provide a tactile sense. It’s dependability also meant that I knew it would be simple to setup. This meant that I could use part of the day to setup the ESP32 with the wifi which was more of an unknown.

The first patch that I prepared for Capturing Movement into Sounds was called Zones. I wrote some Javascript code in max to generate cubes randomly placed within the imagined 3D space of the x, y and z co-ordinates of the controller. When a performer’s hand passes through the zone it causes a tone to be played. The tone stops with a slight delay when their hand leaves the zone.

We started to generate different ways of performing with this device. Jodi wrote text instructions such as “Find a Silence”, “Find a low note, then create a rising melody” etc. These were nice ways to introduce someone into this interaction.

Documentation by: Alastair Gray

I see this patch as being useful for creating installation works. It is easy to pick up and it is easy to figure out, but the number of different instructions that we wrote for it, show us that there is a lot of ways to play with it. We also gave the audience a chance to play with it and they quickly picked it up showing that it would work with the public I would change the sonic output but probably keep a pitch element to it as it provides a nice way to musically play with the sounds.

Additionally we explored control over a granular synthesiser with the GameTrak controller. It worked well and there was a solid interaction, but it didn’t feel as strong as the triggering of the zones patch. An instrument with a constant sound has quite a different feel to it. The timbre was changed by movement more than pitches. This raises a question: is there enough musical movement to keep the soundworld interesting? We felt that there wasn’t in the iteration that we tried. The Zones patch had a nice sense of space and pauses built into the interaction. The random element meant that the physical positions of the pauses would be different each time which I found enjoyable to experience.

This is a quick overview and an example of one of the interactions that we created over the course of the workshops. For other resources to people using the GameTrak Controller can be found: here, here and here