The BeatMask
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The BeatMask was created at the Red Bull Hack the Hits Music Hackathon in October, 2018. The BeatMask is a new instrument that allows a beatboxer’s vocal input to play back drum samples in real-time. In other words, whatever you beatbox into the mask, the sound that the beatboxing is linked to in Ableton Live is what comes out of your computer speakers and is heard by the audience.
TECHNOLOGIES USED
Arduino, MAX/MSP, Ableton Live
TEAM
Alexina Boudreaux - Prototyper, Raul G. Dagir - Prototyper, Claire Marie Lim - Prototyper
HOW IT WORKS
The BeatMask is made from a spray paint mask, an Arduino, a gyroscope, two potentiometers, LED lights, and a pair of Apple EarPods. The software programs used with the mask are MAX and Ableton Live.
Images of the beatmask
A microphone along the interior front wall of BeatMask captures the user’s voice and sends it to a computer, where it is processed via Max/MSP using a combination of DSP objects and libraries. Some key externals include bonk~, an onset detector originally developed by Miller Puckette, and the ml.lib library of machine learning externals based on Nick Gillianthe’s Gesture Recognition Toolkit, which assists with spectral analysis of the beatboxer’s incoming vocal frequencies.
Having that data in hand, a supervised machine learning algorithm we developed and trained classifies the beatboxer’s performance as either a kick, snare, or hi-hat. This then creates a MIDI profile of note number and velocity for each detected sound, which is sent to a DAW - in this case, Ableton Live - that triggers a corresponding kick, snare, or hi-hat sample of the user’s choice. Simultaneously, envelope followers in Live trigger a set of LEDs on BeatMask that sync up to each instance of the drum samples, matching each kick, snare, and hi-hat occurence with a red, green, and blue light flash. This entire real-time process gives beatboxers the ability to create more powerful and engaging live performances, especially paired with the visual LED feedback, and also provides a potential tool for increasing the efficiency of in-studio drum programming.
ACCOLADES
The BeatMask won 1st place at the Red Bull Hack the Hits Music Hackathon. Click here to read a Daily Trojan article about the BeatMask winning the hackathon.