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Here’s my little profile:

I’m a 2nd year IxD  masters student. Before coming back to school I designed websites, built props and taught. I’m interested in making things that make noise [possibly instruments, possibly not], things that make people work together, and things that look very very nice. I’ve got a lot of experience in HTML/CSS, JS, Processing and Max/MSP, and Adobe CS. I’m generally much more comfortable with software than with hardware and I’d like to change that.

Twitter:johnmgruen

GitHub: johngruen

Here’s my little project description:

Dr. Dummy is multi-user, web-based drum machine designed to allow many people to create music collaboratively. Dr. Dummy is built using node.js, socket.io and the audiolet audio library. The basic idea is simple. Users go to the site, select an instrument and are then given a single track of sixteen switches representing drum beats. Users can toggle beats off and on and as multiple users do this, complex rhythms are created by the drum machine.

This was a really fun project and it pushed my abilities with Javascript quite a lot. I was really impressed [and pleasantly surprised] at how fast node and websockets function even across remote networks/hosts.

This project is still a work in progress. I’m currently adding voices which can be controlled through accelerometer events on smartphone clients. Unfortunately, the project doesn’t exist on the web right now though it’s easy to run it on your local network. You can download the entire thing here. You’ll need to install node.js (from the link above) and review the readme.txt file which explains how to launch and use the project. It sounds much better if your machine is hooked up to real speakers. Don’t forget to dance!

I’m really looking forward to the semester. See you soon!