Any experiences with MIDI-sprout/Plant Wave?

Eva

Hi all

I got a little hooked after a chat i a Guru Session, when I heard about the little device MIDI-Sprout, that is now called Plant Wave. It is translating signals from Plants into a MIDI-signal and is made for music - and I am guessing that this would be interesting to try and use with visuals and body signals. But does anyone here have any experience with the device? Or something similar, that might be cheaper? Then I am curious. If there is something I should be aware of, or if anyone have had good experiences:)All the best to all of you:)
Eva

DusX

@eva

I don't have any experience with the Plant Wave. I do consider it a bit expensive for what it is, although I don't know exactly what type of sensors it uses.
With that said, if you are looking to do the same with the body, you may be interested in this previous forum thread:
https://community.troikatronix..

In general, you will need some type of microprocessor (Arduino is the best known) and connect it to some form of Sensor (Heart Rate, Temperature, Sonar, Infrared etc...), then program the microprocessor to read the sensor data and pass information back to Isadora.
You might communicate between the microprocessor and Isadora in a number of ways. The easiest to get started is Serial (USB cable from Laptop to Arduino), while others like OSC, MIDI, and Art Net are also possible.
If you want communications to be wireless you will need a microprocessor with WiFi capabilities (built in or via an add on board) as well as code libraries for the microprocessor that support it.
This might all sound daunting, but taken one step at a time can actually be a lot of fun and a great learning project.

liminal_andy

@eva as DusX mentioned, you can go the custom route with an Arduino and see great results; I use them with Isadora all the time and have a lot of fun with it, and there is so much support out there.

If you are looking for something off the shelf for use with a human, and you don't want to pay this premium, maybe try something like this mobile sensor / app combo and an NDI phone screen converter to get the graph into Isadora? While I have not used this specific device before, it may be interesting. But maybe the app will have some limits that are not sensible to work around, or maybe processing the graph won't allow you to work with the data in a raw-enough way.

Plant Wave looks interesting, but if I come home with a $300 EKG for a plant I will be evicted :)

Eva

@liminal_andy

Well, you are totally right about that - the price is high, and I am trying to figure out what I get from it. And what would make sense... The main idea is to be able to move rather freely and get some signals to work with, that can express something else than where the body is in space (like you can with infrared cameras). I just realised, that this is not the only device making music from plants, but the others seem to be expencive as well... I have thought of going the arduino way - and maybe this will be it... though this will be also quite some work I am imagining and equipment needed... Im still trying to figure the best way. The small EKG sounds like a good idea - especially if one could move with it :)

Eva

@dusx
Well I think you are rigtht! The best solution will probably be to build one and learn on the way how all this works... I think I had a small hope that this time would be a plug and play experience, but it is not really :D So I will try and look into what I need and where to get it... Also, I saw that this is not the only device like that, but they are fairly expensive all of them...

Thanks though for the advice - I will see where to find things and probably get back...

All the best
Eva