The Reactable is an
electronic musical instrument
An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronics, electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is ...
with a tabletop
tangible user interface that was developed within the Music Technology Group at the
Universitat Pompeu Fabra in
Barcelona
Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
,
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
by
Sergi Jordà, Marcos Alonso, Martin Kaltenbrunner and Günter Geiger.
In late 2010, a mobile version of the Reactable was released for iOS.
Basic operation
The Reactable is a round translucent table, used in a darkened room, and appears as a
backlit display. By placing blocks called ''tangibles'' on the table, and interfacing with the visual display via the tangibles or fingertips, a virtual
modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound effects.
Tangibles
There are various types of tangibles representing different modules of an analog synthesizer. Audio frequency
VCOs,
LFOs,
VCFs, and
sequencers are some of the commonly used tangibles. There are also tangibles that affect other modules: one called ''radar'' is a periodic trigger, and another called ''tonalizer'' limits a VCO to the notes of a
musical scale.
Using tangibles with the display
The table itself is the display. As a tangible is placed on the table, various animated symbols appear, such as waveforms, circles, circular grids, or sweeping lines. Some symbols merely show what the particular tangible is doing, others can be used by fingertip to control the respective module.
Example of operation
If a VCO tangible is placed on the table, a VCO module is added to the virtual synthesizer. In the display, a waveform will appear between the tangible and the "output" (a bright spot at the center of the table), and a circle appears around the tangible which allows fingertip control of the amplitude of the waveform. Additionally, in this example the tangible can be rotated by hand to change the frequency.
Placing a filter tangible between the VCO and the output causes the VCO's waveform to connect to the filter, and the filter waveform to connect to the output. If an LFO tangible is placed near the VCO, a waveform will then appear connecting those two, and the LFO will modulate the VCO.
Structure
The main user interface consists of a translucent table. Underneath the table is a
voice recorder, aimed at the underside of the table and inputting video to a
personal computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...
. There is also a
video projector under the table, also connected to the computer, projecting video onto the underside of the table top that can be seen from the upper side as well. There is an audio engine based on
Pure Data and
SuperCollider
Placed onto the table are the tangibles that have ''
fiducials'' attached to their underside which are seen through the table by the camera. The fiducials are printed black-and-white images, consisting of circles and dots in varying patterns, optimized for use by
reacTIVision. reacTIVision then uses the fiducials to understand the function of a particular tangible.
Most of the tangibles are flat, with one fiducial on the underside. Some other tangibles are cubes, with fiducials attached to several sides, allowing those tangibles to serve multiple functions.
Currently, there are two versions of the Reactable, Reactable Live! and the Reactable experience. Reactable Live is a smaller, more portable version designed for professional musicians. The Reactable experience is more like the original Reactable, and suited for installations in public spaces.
reacTIVision
The live video stream received from a digital video camera is processed by the
open-source computer vision
Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...
software called reacTIVision, originally developed by Martin Kaltenbrunner and Ross Bencina for the Reactable project. reacTIVision detects cartesian and rotational placement of fiducials on the table surface, then emits the specially designed
Open Sound Control based
network protocol called
TUIO, which communicates to the actual synthesizer and visualization software that outputs to the video projector. reacTIVision is also capable of multi-touch fingertip tracking.
Presentations
The Reactable has been presented and performed at various festivals and conferences such as
Ars Electronica,
Sónar,
NIME and
SIGGRAPH. Over the years, the Reactable team has showcased more than 150 presentations and concerts in more than 30 countries around the world.
Icelandic singer
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct voice, three-octave vocal range, and eccentric public per ...
is perhaps the first musician outside of the select presentations and demonstrations to use a Reactable in live performance. Björk's 2007 world tour supporting her 2007 release ''
Volta'' used the instrument in several songs including "
Declare Independence"; Björk's live inaugural use of the instrument took place at the
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 27, 2007.
Recently splitting into two models, the Reactable Experience is on display in many exhibitions. Some of these include:
INTECH,
Discovery World (museum),
Museum of Science and Industry,
Sub Mix Pro,
ZKM, and
Game Science Center Berlin.
During the
2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Reactable was featured at the
CODE
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...
festival. Throughout February, this event featured interactive media paired with sports and music.
In March 2010, a Reactable was installed at
Discovery Place in Charlotte, North Carolina. as part of the 'Think it up' exhibition which opened to the public on May 1, 2010
From July 2, 2010, until October 1, 2010, a Reactable Experience was on display in the
Science Gallery in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, as part of their 'BioRhythm' exhibition.
There is Reactable at the Centre des sciences de Montréal in Montreal, Canada.
In 2011 the band
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...
featured a Reactable in the music video of their single "Promises".
From March 2011 a Reactable is on display in
Copernicus Science Centre, Warsaw, Poland. It is a part of "Re:Generation" exhibition and is available for use by visitors.
British band
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer and percussionist Will Champion, and manager Phil Harvey (band m ...
used a Reactable during their performance of their song "
Midnight
Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours.
...
" during
iTunes Festival at
SXSW
South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...
on March 11, 2014.
Awards
The Reactable received much attention from bloggers and was featured in major TV shows and popular magazines. Rolling Stone Magazine claimed that the Reactable was the hot instrument of 2007. The device has also received several awards including Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Digital Musics, the MIDEM Hottest Music Biz Start-Up Award, and two D&AD Yellow Pencil Awards in 2008.
[
]
See also
* Audiocubes
* Multi-touch
In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface (a touchpad or touchscreen) to recognize the presence of more than one somatosensory system, point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CE ...
* Tenori-on
The Yamaha Tenori-on is an electronic musical instrument designed and created by the Japanese artist Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori of the Music and Human Interface Group at the Yamaha (manufacturer), Yamaha Center for Advanced Sound Technology.
...
* Turntables
References
External links
Reactable website
Music Technology Group
* View Demo
* View Demo
{{Authority control
Electronic musical instruments
Experimental musical instruments
Surface computing
User interfaces