domingo, 17 de mayo de 2009

How to destroy your marriage making a bad "Speak and Spell"


Ok... I didn't quite destroy my marriage. (I did test my wife's patience quite a bit, though.)

Anyways. Some ideas are better than others.

This is a casiotone keyboard that I rewired to speak the phonetic alphabet.

I wanted to make it speak with juggling balls.

HOWEVER... the problem is that recorded sounds are phonetic, rather than phonemic. (they are mere echos, not meaningful chunks) It is extremely difficult to make a real word sound, let alone a natural sentence. Texas Instruments modeled the vocal chords with their "speak and spell" as seen in "E.T" to make something recognizable, if not very human. I can't put the logic units in without attacking the whole sound puzzle idea I had in the first place. (... and spending a lot of time making a 25 kilo speak and spell. Any programmers rise to the challenge of making some software?)

The good news is, I did invent a new musical instrument that I can play with juggling balls that doesn't merely rely on a sequencer to make the music. (Menendez has one like that... it doesn't matter where he hits, the programming only uses one basic trigger. That is for sissies. It looks really cool, but is for sissies. Sissy, sissy, sissy.)

The bad news is that I need to find time to learn to play and program it... and it weighs a ton. (so that the bouncing balls don't move it.)

I am a firm believer that the quality of a show is shown by the amount of good ideas you throw away making it... and this is an idea that is just "on hold" for a while longer.

Next year, Eurovision will be mine.

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario