Sam PL » Interface

Joystick and Guitar Hero MIDI Scripting

Sam PL — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:39:14 +0000

For an Independent Study this past summer semester, I set out to tackle some novel approaches to controlling music. I ended up writing patches for the graphical programming language MAX/MSP that allowed me to receive signals from game controllers and convert them to MIDI signals, which were then received in my favorite music software: Ableton Live. After composing a track with digital instruments and samples, the setup allowed me to control any music parameters I wanted by pressing buttons, moving joysticks and whammy bars–even tilting a Guitar Hero controller (with an accelerometer inside).

Audacity theme

Sam PL — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:09:32 +0000

Audacity is a great, simple, open-source audio editing software utility. The interface needs a little work, though–everything is functional, it just looks a little stale.

Audacity’s 1.3.3 beta release included preliminary support for skinning, which allowed users to modify the interface graphics. I created a partial theme with a significant icon update and submitted it to the Audacity development forums.

The theme uses modified parts of the free png icon set Silk at famfamfam.

Audacity with new theme elements:

…and the original version:

Radio Player for Yahoo! Widgets

Sam PL — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:26:59 +0000

I designed an audio streaming widget for the Yahoo! Widget Engine for our student radio station. So far, we’ve have more than 2,000 downloads. View or download here.

The player is based off of an earlier version of the 5FM Streamer Widget. Some of the other radio widgets were visually way too busy; I wanted to make the player as simple as possible. The widget has a link to the station’s website and a play button over a glossy blue base.

Radio Embeddable Player Interface

Sam PL — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:16:27 +0000

I made some graphics for an embeddable flash player for The LION 90.7fm. See them action (or embed them!) on the LION’s website here.

iPhone Medical App

Sam PL — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:29:23 +0000

I designed a few mockups for a medical iPhone application proposal for a Human-Computer Interaction course. The application would provide doctors and nurses with up-to-the-minute patient information and alerts, replacing their current phones and pagers.

Our team described three separate “mini-apps” that would function together: a patient status look-up feature (above), a drug interaction database, and an emergency paging system. The application interface would allow for more features to be added depending on the practitioner’s specialty; for example, a surgery student could add an interactive Grey’s Anatomy.