ECE 4760: Final Projects

DJ Party: A Collaborative Music Teacher

A versatile music device capable of making collaborative music and teaching songs.

Matt Stern (mjs476@cornell.edu)

Albert Liao (ajl264@cornell.edu)

Introduction    top

"This device allows friends to learn songs, create their own songs, and collaboratively merge them."

Our final project for ECE 4760 is a fully customizable button keyboard that has a variety of features to allow for collaborative music-making between friends. Each keyboard has eight fully programmable buttons; any button can play any valid MIDI note and there are 16 customizable instrument sounds, all created using FM synthesis. Our device allows for real-time MIDI recording and playback, so that you can experiment with different harmonies and melodies. After recording a melody, you can also play it back in the exact pattern you played it using our MIDI synthesizer. The biggest collaborative feature of our device is the ability to send recorded MIDI tracks to a friend using the same device through IR transmission, such that you can hear the melody they created and superimpose your melody on top of theirs. The device is able to record up to four simultaneous channels, each of which can have its own instrument and play up to three simultaneous notes; this way, friends can send melodies back-and-forth to each other to create tone-rich songs. Lastly, we have a teacher mode, where the user plays along with preprogrammed songs. After playing it, they will receive feedback on how well the song was recreated. By using this mode, the user will be able to play the melody perfectly after some practice.

Figure 1: Two DJ Party prototypes.