14 DAY TRIAL // We've told you several times up until now that the Kinect motion controller from Microsoft is a real boon for developers, who come up with all sorts of innovative applications that leverage the device's motion-tracking capabilities, one of the latest revolving around the use of the Kinect as an instrument for creating music.
So, as the people over at CreateDigitalMusic inform us, developer Martin Kaltenbrunner has managed to create a virtual Theremin prototype using the hacked Kinect sensor, but it seems that in order for him to perfect this application, Mr. Kaltenbrunner requires the assistance of some trained Theremin players, who'll provide him with the much-need fine-tuning input.
If you're not exactly sure what a Theremin is, you should know that, as Wikipedia informs us, we're talking about an early electronic musical instrument controlled without contact from the playern that's been named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928.
The controlling section features two metal antennas which sense the position of the player's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) with the other, so it can be played without being touched, with the electric signals from the theremin being amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.
According to Martin Kaltenbrunner, his software, called Therenect, acts as a virtual Theremin, and has been developed using the Open Frameworks and OpenKinect libraries.
The secret here is that the distance to the virtual antenna tips can be controlled by freely moving the hand in three dimensions or by reshaping the hand, which allows gestures that are quite similar to playing an actual Theremin.
Since we're talking about an ongoing project, the software will only be released under an open source license when it is more mature, and we believe everyone's eagerly looking forward to that moment (or at least those hacked Kinect owners with a well-developed musical ear).
Therenect - Kinect Theremin from Martin Kaltenbrunner on Vimeo.