reacTable – Surface For Musicians

1 of my favorite features of the Surface is the part where you can program ‘dominoes’ to interact with the Surface. Cut to reacTable, a very fancy & jaw dropping DJ console! Well, that was what was demoed at the IIT techfest, where the Microsoft Surface was also demoed.

The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface.

On a reacTable, the performer places shapes that interact with the table & these shapes produce different sounds:

  • Square objects – Sound Generator
  • Rotation changes frequencies
  • Finger rotation controls amplitude
  • Rounded squares – Sound Filters

The demo performed was spectacular, it had the crowds jumping in their seats. Note, at this was a crowd of India’s brightest engineers. The Surface demo following this was a big fail even though this is can be implemented on the Surface too.

Here is a small interview by the developers after their performance:

2 videos of the performance, an amazing remix from the movie Rock On:

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