[KYLE EVANS PERFORMING WITH CIGAR BOX CONTROLLER]

KYLE EVANS: My name is Kyle Evans, and I go to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

This right here is a controller for Max/MSP. What it is -- I open it up here. It's actually just a Playstation 2 game controller that I packed into and it was made to plug into a computer for PC control. It's got a little USB port right here that comes out of it so that makes for easy access to spit numbers into the computer, and I pretty much just open it up, and since it had two joysticks, I took out the potentiometers of those joysticks and added photocells and then replaced them, and then I was able to create a program here in Max that could decipher everything that comes in.

Since it's a game controller, everything, all the buttons and all the potentiometers come after the joystick and through the buttons, and these are all right here just from the Playstation controller like the circle, the triangle, the x, and the square buttons, and then these ones are the R buttons, L1, R1, L2, R2. This right here is the D pad that I have, and then right here these are all the joystick functions that I replaced with photocells.

So I take these values that I gathered from, deciphering from that patch, and then I am sending them to another patch, and I just use all the slider values to control any type of audio or synthesis that I want to. Right here I can play on these right here, the D Pad buttons that I have. This one is an air traffic communication sample that I have.

[KYLE EVANS DEMONSTRATES CONTROLLER USE]

For the air traffic control sound, I was flying on an airplane and for some reason this one, I've never experienced this before, but in the side seat they have the little radio thing that you can listen to on the side. On this one in particular you could listen to the air traffic control, everything that was going on with that airplane during the whole flight, so I just sat there and listened to it for hours, you know. I guess it was just really entertaining and then I realized I got to record some of this so I just plugged it in to my laptop and recorded it and then started programming from there and started manipulating it.

[KYLE EVANS DEMONSTRATES CONTROLLER USE]

It was really just a challenge to see if I can make the controller myself instead of having to buy one at the store or something like that which can get really, really pricey while this is a $20 game controller I got at Radio Shack and just opened it up and got some cheap components for it and just did a little bit of programming in there and I had a perfect controller.

Cigar boxes are perfect to house any type of music -- synthesizer that you might want to build or controller because they're sturdy and they're easy to drill into. They're just perfect.

I did come across a lot of problems when I was trying to do the programming because I'm using the object that I used that gathers all the information coming in through the USB port. It comes in almost randomly and it was really a struggle to try to decipher all of that language and to try to turn it into something that I can use to control other objects. I think photocells are -- they're great for performance. They show a lot of -- you can do a lot of movement and things like that, and you can see -- people can see with your hands how you're affecting and it works almost because I think people like the whole Theremin aspect of proximity sensors and things but these are a whole lot cheaper than that to use so I think that's why a lot of people are using them now.

[KYLE EVANS DEMONSTRATES CONTROLLER USE]

Obviously, with this controller right here I can program any patch I want, just create a multitude of sounds which I'm definitely be using for more in the future, but also what I want to do, what I didn't think about before was I'm having external devices that I could plug into this box, and then that would replace, say the photocells, as actual knobs and things like, or bend sensors or any other type of resistor that I would want to use.

These are some synthesis little patches that I made right here that can be triggered from here every time I press one of these. If I press this button, then it will trigger this right here, and then I can always -- I can control that in many different ways like with amplitude and modulation right here, I got this one, this photocell that controls it and changes it, then filters also right here. I got a low pass filter on it. And then for another sample, for the air communication one, I got speed control right here on this one, and then modulation right here again on that one. Depending on the light levels that's there, they're always changing, so depending on where I'm going to perform it. So, what I added in parallel to these photocells is these little potentiometers, and what I can do is twist these and it depends -- and it gives a value of how much the potentiometer is going to receive, and so then I could crank it up fro really, really low light levels and so I can get into it. Or, if I've got something that's really, really bright, I can turn it down and just get the perfect amount in there along with the programming also and adding ranges and things like that inside Max, then I can find a perfect medium for it. I use an M-Audio trigger finger to control my dynamics also while running this patch and then I control all the input and the modulation and everything with this.

[KYLE EVANS DEMONSTRATING CONTROLLER USE]