Quick Details

Pitch paint is a project originally created for the Reality Virtually Hackathon in 36 hours. The project won the Audience Choice award, as well as the second place award for Best Entertainment Application.

Inspired by synesthesia, it features a VR environment in which to paint and visualize music. Pitch varies on the y-axis such that the lowest note is nearest to the ground and highest pitched note is above the user's head. Each note corresponds to a specific color so that chords can be visualized not only via position in 3D space, but also through color coordination. Users can draw single notes, chords, or entire strings of notes in space by painting with a Vive controller. Each note will loop in timing to create a melody, much like a music loop pedal. How fast the notes loop in time varies directly with the speed in which they are painted (how fast the user moves their arm). All singular notes and chords are standard 4/4 timing. Several different instruments were pre-loaded into the project, and all notes were in the key of C for easy composing and testing.

  • Role: Team Lead, Designer, and Engineer
  • Hardware: HTC Vive
  • Languages: C#
  • Platforms: Unity
  • Time Frame: Originally 36 Hrs
  • Teammates: Zachary Sherin, Rebecca Kleinberger
  • : Tinashe Chagwedera, Travis Casper

Responsibilities

For this project I acted as Team Lead, guiding the vision of the project as well as an Engineer. I was also the main teammember with a music theory background.

  • Collaborated to design features with team members as well as helped answer questions about music theory, composition, and practice.
  • Designed and authored code for the UI controls as well as chord painting system.
  • Presented application to judges as well as hackathon visitors in final review process.

    • Outcome & Skills Learned

    This project was a big hit across the hackathon as it won the Audience Choice award as well as the second place award for Best Entertainment Application! For this project we had a very small team with only a few programmers, so I learned how to communicate quickly and effectively in order to finish our project on time. I hope to extend this application futher in the future, and even have a couple friends who would like to be onboard. My hope is that this becomes a full application with a full orchestra of instruments, FX, time and key signatures, and can cater to novice and professional musicians alike.

    Our team won the Audience Choice Award and Second Prize for Best Entertainment Application!

    Attempt at quickly replicating a transcribed version of Pachelbel's Canon in D.