Recommended: MIDIBridge for AudioCubes

Our flagship and swiss knife application to use AudioCubes in live situations is MIDIBridge.

Inspiring control over your software

This software combined with AudioCubes hardware lets you create an audiovisual live performance in which the location, orientation and distances between AudioCubes can be used to control visuals, audio playback, audio effects, sound synthesis parameters, … on your computer. At the same time the colours (RGB) of AudioCubes can be mixed and controlled from your computer’s software, in perfect sync.

MIDIBridge lets you set up cubes to detect each other, and generate note triggers and MIDI continuous controller information, which you can send to other software or hardware that is MIDI compatible, such as Ableton Live.

Multiple parameter changes unlock unique creative results

You can use the note triggers there to control anything that supports an on/off type of signal. For example, you can start or stop audio clips. Of course, this works with other MIDI compatible software too and not only with Ableton Live. You can set up multiple pairs of cubes that detect each other, so fairly complex setups are possible.

At the same time, you can set up cubes to sense distance to nearby objects or your hands, and send that information out as a MIDI controller, letting you control your parameters that require continuous data. For example, you can control the cutoff frequency of a filter. Because each cube has 4 sensors (on 4 of its faces) you can control up to 4 parameters, giving you access to a four-dimensional space of audio effect exploration. Regular knob boxes have a hard time accessing this area (it’s not very easy to turn 4 knobs simultaneously if you are limited to two hands).

Of course these could be any kind of parameters, not necessarily controlling the same effect. Besides controlling effects you could also control a parameter of a MIDI arpeggiator, for example. Or you could map the controller to a note trigger and use the sensor data as aftertouch. Of course there are ways provided to scale and invert controllers and there is a visual display of the controller level to give you feedback during your performance.

Get a visual, high-level overview

We know that during live performance you cannot practically control every last aspect of your setup. There is simply too much running simultaneously. That’s where AudioCubes can help – they offer a simple way to control and overview the most important parts of your performance, and let you act at a “conductor” level. Because of the deep mapping possibilities of the MIDIBridge software, you can make your setup powerful but at the same time simple. The visual feedback provided by the AudioCubes can help you keep track of the most important aspects.

The colours of the cubes can also be mixed, controlled and synchronized. You have individual control over the red, green and blue components of the cubes. This is not just a visual effect, simple colour display feedback synchronized to certain timing parameters of your live setup can help you keep an overview of the situation. The colours can be controlled by MIDI controller messages, but you can also sync them to a MIDI clock or control them using cube sensors, such that the colours change as your hand approaches a cube.

Collaborate with friends wirelessly without setup

Because MIDIBridge lets you work with up to 4 cubes directly connected to your computer, and you can use up to 4 cubes talking wirelessly to the connected cubes, you can create a big 16 cube setup if you like. If you have a friend with AudioCubes you can put your cubes together and both run MIDIBridge on your laptop, and use a sender  cube to control multiple receiver or sensor cubes connected to your laptops. There is no need to configure anything to make the two laptops talk. They both use AudioCubes and that’s all that matters.

Control your hardware MIDI gear

If you have a hardware MIDI interface and external hardware synths, you can send the MIDI data from MIDIBridge to your external gear, or receive MIDI data from your external gear and use it to control the cubes’ colours. For example, you could use an Elektron Machinedrum, and control its patterns using the AudioCubes, as well as its effects, and at the same time receive the MIDI clock from the machinedrum and use it to control the colours of the cubes, for example to display the beat using a flash of red light. If you happen to play in a band other people can visually sync to the colour pattern. In MIDIBridge, you can select per cube a MIDI input and output port, so you could use one cube with a hardware synth while using another with software on your computer through a virtual MIDI port.

Great speed, accuracy and user experience

The application itself talks directly to the AudioCubes hardware for tight synchronization and rock solid performance (we use USB HID which gives us a 1kHz update rate and 10 bit resolution, so much better than MIDI). We developed the latest version in C++ with help of the JUCE toolkit, and it looks and works exactly the same on both Mac and PC. You can easily save and load your presets in MIDIBridge so you are up and running fast. Sensor setup in MIDIBridge is now super easy and flexible. We’ve made the application as easy to use as possible, so you won’t be clicking through a series of drop down menus and option menus to find what you need. It’s all there in one screen with clear layout.

Flexible integration with your projects

To make it easy to get started, we have templates available for Ableton Live, Propellerheads Reason and FL Studio, so you can use these as a starting point for your AudioCubes performance setup, without having to go through a MIDI mapping procedure. If you are an advanced type of user who creates a performance setup in Max/MSP for example, you can send the MIDI data from MIDIBridge to Max/MSP using a virtual MIDI port. We also have a software development kit for Max/MSP and C/C++ in case you want to build your own applications and talk directly to our AudioCubes hardware. You can download it from the applications downloads page.

You can read more about MIDIBridge on the application’s main page here. If you want to get detailed information about MIDIBridge you can read the manual here on our Wiki. If you want to download MIDIBridge you can do so on the downloads page. All AudioCubes software is free, and we offer lifetime free upgrades to software. If you have questions, please send us an email. We’re really happy to help you out and offer you our advice.