by Thiago T.
The Coin Sampler is a simple audio sampler that I came up with. It has 4 infra-red sensors and 4 infra-red LEDs. When something reflective goes by each LED/sensor combo a signal is sent for the computer to play a sample.
This is a side-project of mine that I finally had the time to (sort of) finish. The device communicates to the computer through the parallel port and the software is written in C# with DirectX and needs a lot of work.
UPDATE: The original idea was to make a cheap and simple circuit to use existing objects as a better human interface for some types of applications. More like a proof-of-concept, but one that I will probably end up using quite a bit. Software can be written to handle the incoming events however you'd like (change pitch, tempo, play notes or do any sort non-audio sutff), it's just that I did not put much time into the software at this point and just decided to show it around and see people's reactions. On a related note, I'm also interested in writing an open-source audio app for live performances in general, and among the usual types of inputs (wave, midi) it would have support for parallel and serial data. I have a couple of other ideas for the acutal interface, but very little C knowledge, so contact me if you're interested
Oh, and I never received the confirmation email for my Slashdot account (maybe because I used hotmail?), so I can't reply on the forums...
UPDATE 2: I was told that, as it is right now, this is actually a sequencer, not a sampler, since it does not record. This gives me a few ideas :)
UPDATE 3: Oddly, I was told some people believe this is a hoax. There is really no way I can prove it is not so (other than have people see that it's actually an extremely simple device and that making fake videos would take way longer than it took me to build it) but I thought I might as well post another video. Enjoy!
It's pretty simple stuff, and I'll upload it in a couple of days. I would like to find a good open-source license for it first, so please contact me if you have any suggestions.
PS: This is a temporary site, by the way. The videos are hosted by the awesome OurMedia service, which works in partnership with the Internet Archive and Drupal to offer you free media hosting for ever. Drupal also happens to be the CMS I use for my real site, Varal.org.