Collin's Lab: Brainwave Beats

Measuring brainwaves is not just for neuroscientists anymore – new affordable consumer level EEG devices ( & even some toys) do a respectable job at measuring tiny voltage pulses given off by neurons firing in the brain. Cool – but how shall we use these new found sensory powers? To automatically compose electronic music, of course!

Those interested in listening to beats made by their own brains (with help from a MindSet device) can download and run the MindSet Beat Sequencer code for Processing. The software has not been optimized/streamlined as of yet, but if you familiarize yourself with the required proMIDI & MindSetProcessing libraries, it will likely make sense. Those without a MindSet might consider modifying the Beat Sequencer code to automatically generate MIDI loops by choosing random patterns every second or so (fun!).

As I mentioned in the video, I struggled with recurring connectivity issues between the MindSet and Processing within Mac OS 10.6.7. (still unsure as to a cause, though a snafu in the serial RXTX library seems possible) Removing the device from Bluetooth preferences, shutting down, rebooting, and re-pairing the device was my only therapy. Sean Montgomery (author of the Biosensing Primer in MAKE Volume 26) assures me he had no such issues using WIndows.

Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo.

27 Responses to Collin's Lab: Brainwave Beats

Seth Johanson on May 6th, 2011 at 2:49 am said:

Can you tell me where you got the EEG headset.

Thanks

Seth

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- Collin Cunningham on May 12th, 2011 at 4:46 pm said:
  
  note: see my reply below
  
  Reply ↓
Collin Cunningham on May 6th, 2011 at 3:47 am said:

whoops – forgot to actually link NeuroSky’s MindSet page site:

http://store.neurosky.com/collections/hardware/products/mindset

I’m actually borrowing the MindSet from MAKE’s project lab. FYI – NeuroSky’s MindWave device has less features but costs half as much:

http://store.neurosky.com/collections/hardware/products/mindwave-1

No sign of a MindWave processing library though.

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- Anonymous on May 6th, 2011 at 11:45 am said:
  
  Use the Mindset library and hack back on what doesn’t work. They’re basically the same piece of kit.
  
  I too have problems with the BT, as the PC I’m using it on has
  its own incompatible BT preinstalled. I’m going to try it on one which doesn’t.
  
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  Collin Cunningham on May 7th, 2011 at 6:17 am said:
  
  (fyi – different avatar, same Collin)
  
  Yes, that’d be the first strategy I’d try. The Mindwave uses an RF dongle instead of BT so it might alleviate our problems altogether.
  
  Reply ↓
Daniel Kim on May 6th, 2011 at 1:20 pm said:

Ha ha! I just read about anime cosplay cat-ears that respond to your brain activity

http://www.geekosystem.com/cat-ears-mind-control/

Made by

http://neurowear.net/

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Christian Restifo on May 6th, 2011 at 4:23 pm said:

I keep waiting for the music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to start…..;^)

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Clark Eagling on May 6th, 2011 at 5:10 pm said:

Cool stuff, Colin, but if you sped up the BPM and/or allowed for a higher resolution than 1/4 notes, you’d get much more interesting, dynamic patterns. The data is being a bit too harshly quantized.

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- Collin Cunningham on May 7th, 2011 at 6:05 am said:
  
  I tried – speeding things up sounded a bit too chaotic. Extending the pattern list resolution to 16th notes would make things more interesting – sure it could be dynamically generated too.
  
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Anonymous on May 10th, 2011 at 3:02 pm said:

Hi Collin,

Amazing video, gonna try it out and scare the cat!

I was wondering about the M4L patch you used, can you make it available at all?

Thanks

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Jim Lombardo on May 10th, 2011 at 8:14 pm said:

Neat project Collin! But the Processing sketch you posted (MindSetBeatSequencer-110505b.zip) appears to be corrupt.

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- Tim Mason on November 9th, 2012 at 3:11 am said:
  
  MindSet Beat Sequencer file is corrupted and will not unzip??? Ahhhhhh
  
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Richard Dennis Bartlett on May 10th, 2011 at 10:27 pm said:

This rules Collin! Hooking up a strobe is a good idea, you can easily induce different brainwave states if you have lights blinking at the correct frequency. cf Dreamachine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine

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Anonymous on May 17th, 2011 at 11:54 pm said:

Hi Colin,
I bought the MindWave just because of your hint, thank you very much.
But: could you please upload the file <> a second time somewhere?
I tried the OSX native Archive Utility and got “The Unarchiver” as well – with the outcome that it ll create *.cpgz and *.rar in a loop. When trying to open this one in Windows 7 I am told the *.pde is “destroyed.”
Many thanks in advance and:
best regards from Germany,
Paul

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Scott Young on May 18th, 2011 at 8:37 pm said:

Hi, I’m having trouble downloading the code as other people have said. Great idea, was laughing into my cornflakes the morning I saw this. Perfect mix of science and fun.

Cheers,
Scott.

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Scott Young on May 18th, 2011 at 8:37 pm said:

Hi, I’m having trouble downloading the code as other people have said. Great idea, was laughing into my cornflakes the morning I saw this. Perfect mix of science and fun.

Cheers,
Scott.

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Rabia Akbar on June 18th, 2011 at 5:11 pm said:

please re-upload the source code zip-file,the file is corrupted

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Vlad Alfredov on September 1st, 2011 at 9:58 pm said:

That seems like an interesting device… has anyone tried to take it a part ? I am curious about what it’s actually made of…(dry electrodes, Bluetooth ?anything else?) it might be the case that people can build their own without too much hassle for much less than the price

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Daniel Whitney on November 18th, 2011 at 10:56 am said:

Duuuude

I messed my pants when I found this video. I have been researching for months how to sonify eeg data using my Emotiv Epoc.EEG device. Can I get there form here or do I need to buy the mindset? This may sound strange but this is a actual dream coming close to becoming true. Very happy. THANK YOU!!!!!

Dan

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- Tim Mason on November 9th, 2012 at 9:24 am said:
  
  I was wondering if you had a working copy of MindSetBeatSequencer-110505b.zip as the one on this page is corrupt. Could you send me a copy please.
  
  Reply ↓
Benjamin on April 12th, 2012 at 11:41 am said:

Hi Collins, very nice video.
I tried downloading the zip file, but I cannot unzip :
file #1: bad zipfile offset (local header sig): 0

would you mind sending me the file, I am prety exited to try your code out.

Cheers men, and thanks

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Tim Mason on November 10th, 2012 at 2:09 am said:

I was wondering if you had a working copy of MindSetBeatSequencer-110505b.zip as the one on this page is corrupt. Could you send me a copy please.

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dubcults on March 5th, 2013 at 8:17 pm said:

any chance to get another link for
MindSetBeatSequencer-110505b.zip

file seems to be corrupt.. thanks!

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brainwave beats promo code on April 28th, 2013 at 2:31 pm said:

Scientists continue to look for the causes and cures of age-related illnesses.
It can increase the speed and reasoning ability of our brains.

After the second day, when you woke up, you felt all stiff and sore all over.

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