Evaluating The Wiimote As A Musical Controller: - Précis
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Emilia ElenaEvaluating The Wiimote As A Musical Controller: - Précis
Uploaded by
Emilia ElenaEvaluating the Wiimote as a musical controller
-Précis-
Skills for Music Technology 107EPA
27th October 2016
Emilia-Elena Stahie
The most popular gaming console in 2007 was the Nintendo’s Wii due to its capability of sensing the
motion and to the fact that computers can read the output of the Wiimote. Kiefer, Collins and
Fitzpatrick (2008) state that this device can be turned into a musical controller. The interest in Wiimote
grew exponentially and it can be seen in the multitude of extensions made available by the audio
software community. Human Computer Interaction conducted an experiment to find a connexion
between music and technology. The Wiimote’s part that caught the musicians’ eye was the
accelerometer, a rare feature in musical controllers. The scientists decide to test the Wiimote of its
efficiency because they knew that the gravity could affect the tilt and rotation in a negative way, which
could result in imprecise values. The experiment was supposed to be a competitive one, between the
Wiimote and Roland HPD-15 HandSonic, where they were both subjected to metaphors and musical
tasks. The first exercise tested the machines capability of recording the drumming-like motions. Next,
the participants were asked to move the controllers up and down according to a metronome, while
the pitch changes were logged. The third task involved controlling grain density and filter parameters
of a generated sound (Kiefer et al. 2008). The last test has checked if the Wiimote could recognise five
rhythmic musical tracks associated with a shape. The participants were trained before the actual test
so that the result would be a conclusive one. They were also asked about the advantages and
disadvantages of using the Wiimote, as well as the overall experience of using this controller. There
were used many programs from the ones that record the data, like SuperCollider to the ones that
analysed the values, like MATLAB. The participants, 17 of number, were aged between 20 and 46 years
old, some of them being musicians and gamers. HandSonic was the preferred controller for the first
two tests and the Wiimote for the third one, even though ANOVA, the software used for the results
interpretation showed no noticeable difference between the two machines. The pitch changes
showed, though, a tendency for the roll and tilt axis of the Wiimote to be more accurate than the
knobs of the HandSonic. The interview also produced some interesting facts about the tasks. For
example, the first task was lacking physical feedback, the participants stated. The second one faced
the issue that it was too easy to get lost between notes. The Expressive Continuous Control test
showed that people preferred the Wiimote over HandSonic, simply because it was more fun to play
with, and the last test, Gesture Recognition concluded that the Wiimote would improve the
performance as well as the visual effect on stage. Even though no participant had any expectations,
the majority agreed that they could use the Wiimote to “make performance more of a spectacle”.
Most of them also said that the Wiimote should be improved in terms of haptic feedback, to make
movements feel more natural like an actual drum, or guitar. The study was conducted to thin the
boundaries between music and technology and the results proved that the Wiimote could be used as
a musical instrument, if only the interaction between man and machinery would provide enough
physical feedback.
Kiefer, C., Collins, N. and Fitzpatrick, G. (2008) Evaluating the Wiimote as a Musical Controller.
‘International Computer Music Conference’. held 24-29 August 2008 at Queen’s University Belfast.
