Super Mario Theremin control

Fun & Games Music

This vid’s been making the rounds, featuring an unusual method for controlling old school games – theremin. Yup, theremin. From the video’s desciption –

The sound from the theremin is split into its frequency and amplitude components in real time, which are then mapped to values in a linear scale representing the X and Y axis. Pitch becomes horizontal control, and Volume becomes vertical control.
The X and Y scales are then cut up into different zones. In this case, Left; Right and dead zones for the horizontal, and a single trigger and dead zone for the vertical.

The trigger zones are then mapped onto a virtual joystick hooked into an emulator.

The end result is a fairly usable input control for playing games like mario. The bars give the much needed visual feedback as to how “in tune” you are, so you have a better feel of where the trigger points are.

Very strange to see such a nicey-nice theremin perform dead-simple functionality, but fun is fun, right? If it were me, I’d get that thing hooked up to a PS2 dual-shock asap!

4 thoughts on “Super Mario Theremin control

  1. j says:

    the 1 up and the star!!!

  2. Joe Bowers says:

    It’s like an old school project Natal!

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