Using Heart Rate MIDI Data to Control Volume in Isadora

lovardaviskidd

Greetings, everyone!

I’m new to the forum and still finding my footing with both Isadora and Ableton Live, so I appreciate your patience.

I’ve been reading through several posts but haven’t quite found a solution to the issue I’m working through. I’m currently wearing a MIDI-enabled heart rate monitor and would like to use Isadora to dynamically control the volume of a corresponding MIDI track based on my heart rate. The idea is simple: as my heart rate increases, the volume of the sound increases, and as it decreases, the volume fades accordingly.

Has anyone here tried something similar? I’d love any guidance on how to map the heart rate data to volume levels within Isadora, or if there’s a better way to route this data through Ableton or another method.

Thanks in advance!

Re: [[ANSWERED] Ableton Live > Isadora](/topic/8552/answered-ableton-live-isadora)

dbini

@lovardaviskidd

Does the MIDI stream show up in Isadora's MIDI Setup window? Does it appear as MIDI CC (a controller value based on the BPM of your heart) or MIDI notes (a momentary key press every heartbeat)? In MIDI setup, select your heartrate monitor as input and Isadora Virtual Out as output.

I'm going to assume that you are getting MIDI CC into Isadora. The workflow of MIDI CC - Isadora - Ableton is the way that I would do it, so that I have control over the scaling and smoothing of the data.

Use a Control Watcher actor to receive the data from your monitor. Add a Limit/Scale Value actor so that you can set the minimum heart rate and maximum heart rate, also the minimum and maximum volume. Add a Control Send actor to send the scaled MIDI to Ableton on a particular controller number. Remember to connect the trigger input as well.

In Ableton prefs, select Isadora Virtual Out as a MIDI controller and you should now be able to map your MIDI CC from Isadora to the volume slider of your soundtrack.

lovardaviskidd

@dbini Thank you so much. I will give this all a try. I appreciate the quick response.

Woland

@lovardaviskidd

These User Actors might be useful to you:

heartbeat-generator-v2.iua4
hold-range-and-scale.iua4

Here's our tutorial on User Actors as well: https://support.troikatronix.com/support/solutions/articles/13000091626-isadora-101-tutorial-11-creating-user-actors

Woland

@lovardaviskidd

I forgot it until now, but I also have this simple MIDI example file that might be useful/informative: https://troikatronix.com/add-ons/simple-midi-example/