Step and Funny Talk for the OLPC

I spent my spare time last week developing two audio-based activity prototypes for the OLPC: Step and Funny Talk. The whole process was surprisingly quick and easy. I attribute this to Victor Lazzarini’s Csound Sugar GUI toolkit. I do a lot of Csound programming, but I’ve never actually done any GUI work for it. Using the toolkit was as simple as defining widgets and mapping them in Csound.

Step

OLPC Step Activity

Flickr photo be me

Step is the first activitiy I’m developing for the XO. It’s a straight forward eight note step sequencer with synth notes, snare and kick parts. So far, I’ve probably put in about 8 hours on this. Once a user has a pattern they like, they can render the loop to an audio file, which can then be loaded in other activities. It still needs a lot of work, especially the synth engine. Though you can still take a listen if you would like: StepDemo1.mp3.

Funny Talk

OLPC Funny Talk Activity

Flickr photo be me

This is my favorite of the two, as my inspiration for this activity comes from my childhood memories of the Yamaha VSS-30 keyboard. My friends and I used to spend hours playing with that keyboard. Often in a very juvenile manner. I figured if we had such a great time playing with our voices, then perhaps the target audience of the OLPC will as well. Here is “the sound of my voice” being processed with Funny Talk: FunnyTalkDemo1.mp3.

Csound and the OLPC

OLPC

Flickr photo by me

Since friday, I’ve been learning the ins and outs of my XO computer. I finally got to a point this morning where I can start writing csound-based activities for it.

Using the csndsugui toolkit, I slapped together a primitive step-sequencer in about five hours. It features: An 8-step pitch slider array, two oscillators for notes, AD envelope for amplitude, tempo control, volume control, 8-step kick row and an 8-step snare row. So while it might not do much at the moment, I can certainly see myself fixing it up to a point where it’ll be a fun musical toy in the near future. I’ll post a pic in a few days, once it shapes up a bit.