The EEGsynth
Pretty much since I started acquiring my own modular synth rack, I’ve been wanting to get myself the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator. Now I finally have one, partly after convincing myself it would be so very useful for making brainwave music. Last weekend I created the first EEGsynth patch for this wonderfully sounding module, mapping out […]
We are proud to announce that the program for Transformation in Stockholm is online! Join us for concerts, talks and lots of fun at R1 Reaktorhallen and Trädgården May 30-June 1. Transformation takes its starting point in the EEGsynth technology and centers on transformations between music ↔ body, brain ↔ body, sound ↔ music, triggers […]
The following is a copy from my blog. The OpenBCI Cyton and Ganglion boards are open hardware and maker-friendly biosensing systems. Although there are alternatives, such as Bitalino and OpenEEG and some companies and/or projects are currently working on new hardware (see e.g. EEG.io), the OpenBCI boards are in my opinion at this moment still […]
We are proud to announce a set of 1+1=3 performances in Sweden in spring 2019. The first performance takes place at Folkteatern in Gothenburg February 2. You can book your ticket here or here. The performance is divided into two parts and uses new technology and new concepts. Another performance will take place at Kulturhuset […]
Check out our friends Daniela de Paulis (COGITO in space) and Robert Oostenveld (EEGsynth) this Saturday, December 1 at 20:00 in the Kunstkapel in Amsterdam. As part of a performative audio-visual-spatial (space) exploration, they will use the EEGsynth to sonify brain activity together with other live musicians and performers. The resemblance of the interior of […]
As I mentioned two posts ago, dealing properly with events has been next on our list. Using events for musical purposes has been on the back-burner previously, largely because we wanted to develop more uses of real-time analysis of continuous EEG signals. But in truly interdisciplinary fashion, the EEGsynth is now being used in a […]
Development of event-based processes in the EEGsynth have been slow. Although we have the sequencer and generateclock (formerly “synchronization”) module, with which many patches are possible, we have a long way to go toward truly creative, flexible and musical patching of events, based e.g. on ECG, EMG muscle-contractions, EOG from eye-blinks, and triggering events such as beats, lights, […]
The ICM’s PhD and PostDoc association AJITES, of which I am now a proud member, organizes an annual workshop. During three days (October 24-26), we learn about each other’s research and practice our project development skills. This year we were joined by UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology (ION) from London. I presented the early results […]
This weekend, Per and Samon stayed over at my new place. The new place is a big improvement: a lot more space, light and peace in which we can fall inside and engulf ourselves into the noise of our brain. In a “mini-residency”, we were able to get a lot of work done in two […]
The OpenBCI Ultracortex headset is a nice piece of hardware, but rather expensive (350-800 USD) and does not always provide a good fit with the subjects in terms of comfort and signal quality. Using loose wires with cup electrodes offers flexibility and attaching a few of them with Ten20 paste to the scalp is not such […]
The EEGsynth is going into a busy phase of development and performance thanks to the hard work by the team since 2013 and a grant by Kulturbryggan. Here are a few of the things that will happen in the spring: From Feb 7-11 we will present the EEGsynth as part of the COGITO project at Techart in Rotterdam. We will […]
Today we shot the EEGsynth in action for the science journal E=M6, a science-education show for children on Metropole Television. The program is a French cultural treasure, running for 25 years and having over 3 million weekly viewers! We are part of a series in which E=M6 explores electricity, centered around the (apparently popular) question […]
Robert and I updated and tested the COGITO setup at the upcoming TecArt festival in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, where we will record EEG, transform it into sound in real-time, and then send those sound recordings into space using the 25-meter ASTRON radio telescope at Dwingelo, The Netherlands. It was nice to see everything work quite […]
We are very happy to announce that we have been rewarded a considerable Kulturbryggan grant! With this grant we will develop way’s to fuse musician’s brains, furthering our interdisciplinary research in brain-synthesis. Specifically, we will create ways for people to ‘jam’ together, by connecting their EEG to sound equipment. It will allow anyone with a […]
If you are in Enschede, The Netherlands, this weekend, you can find the EEGsynth at the COGBOT festival for art, music and creative technology (7-10 September). At COGBOT can participate on the COGITO project, watch the amazing movie by Sandro Bocci while your EEG is recorded for interstellar transmission!
We did it! See below the first EEG real-time coded into audio and sent into space with the Dwinglo radiotelescope at ASTRON, The Netherlands. Many inspired experts worked hard on getting us this far. Next step is to prepare the public performances, hopefully starting in November. For more info stay tuned here and on Daniela’s […]
April 7-9, 2017 For two nights we stayed at the ASTRON radio telescope facility in Dwingelo, The Netherlands to develop the protocols for the COGITO performance envisioned by artist Daniela de Paulis. The primary goal of this meeting was to develop a paradigm in which high quality electroencephalography (EEG) is recorded while the participant is […]
On March 6th we held progress meeting of the Brain Control Club at CRI. We were happy to be joined by the GameLab and by three students from the interdisciplinary program on education technology who were interested in finding ways to include neuroscience in their exciting projects. The slides of the presentations can be found […]
This weekend, 1+1=3 had the opportunity to meet in Paris and spend a day updating each other and working out our plans for the future. Much has happened lately, and many exciting things will happen next year. First music release due in spring We have done the first EEG recordings of what will become the […]
We have just arrived in Los Angeles, USA, kicking off our USA tour where we will work and perform together, connect with other artists and academics, give talks, host a session at a conference and reconnect with old friends. First of all, we couldn’t have been able to get it all together with the people […]
One option for connecting the EEGsynth software to modular synth hardware is though our own open hardware Arduino-based USB to CV/Gate modules. Another option is to use readily available commercial hardware, such as the Doepfer MCV4, A-190-2, A-190-4, Pittburgh Modular MIDI 3, or Kenton USB-Solo. We decided to give it a try with the Shuttle Control from Endorphin.es. The Shuttle Control is […]
I have been looking into TouchOSC as an example application that can send and receive Open Sound Control (OSC) messages. I have installed it on my iPhone 5 and on my iPad 2. Using the inputosc/outputosc modules I can read/write OSC messages with EEGsynth. The only thing that I have not figured out yet is how to broadcast OSC messages. We are […]
A lot of development on the EEGsynth software has happened since the BrainHackathon in Paris. The following modules are now implemented (in alphabetical order): accelerometer brain buffer eyeblink heartrate inputosc keyboard launchcontrol muscle openbci2ft outputcvgate outputosc playback pulsegenerator redis sequencer synthesizer volcabass volcabeats volcakeys All the code for the EEGsynth is managed on GitHub, where […]
We are very excited to meet other EEG hackers at BrainHack, Paris, February 24-26. Here are the outlines of our 5 minute scientific and artistic pitch: EEGsynth: scientific and development pitch Stephen Whitmarsh & Robert Oostenveld (presenters), Per Huttner & Jean-Louis Huhta We are very happy to be able to present to you the EEGsynth […]
We wish you a very happy new year! We had quite a year ourselves, and the future of the EEGsynth looks very promising indeed. I would like to give a short recap of where we are now, and where we will be focussing in terms of hardware/software development in the next couple of months. It […]
To link the digital signal processing on a laptop or Raspberry Pi to the analog synthesizer, I have made two usb-to-cvgate converters. The first one I designed and implemented was a one-channel version that is able to output up to (approximately) 5 Volt. The second one is an improved version with four channels that can be […]
Following testing of the one-channel CV/Gate controller and discussions with Stephen, I moved on and designed a four-channel version. The MCP4725 DAC converter used in the previous version can be combined with another DAC on the same I2B bus by removing a connection on the breakout board. However, the I2C bus won’t scale further. I […]
I completed the first Arduino based controller. It has a single control voltage and a single gate, both directly wired to a male 3.5mm connector. Using serial commands over the USB connection, it allows specifying the control voltage between 0 and 5V(*), and the binary gate value (TTL logic). *) although the design was meant […]
With my first post on the Arduino based CV/Gate controller I implemented a single control channel using a single DAC. Now, using four TI LF398 sample-and-hold ICs, I multiplexed the DAC output into four control channels. I updated the Arduino sketch and managed to control all four outputs independently. However, something that I overlooked is […]
I wrote some code that wraps the serial interface and the control commands of the Arduino CV/Gate into a MATLAB class. I used the following example code in MATLAB to benchmark the speed. a = cvgate(‘/dev/tty.usbserial-AH01DRO4’, 115200); a.voltage = 0; a.gate = 0; c = 0; t = tic; while true a.voltage = 5 * […]