need help with a sound installation project

hello.

my name is chad feeback and i am seeking some sort of technical assistance
with my senior project for school. i'm doing a sound installation using
infared beams (optical lasers) and midi sound. i'm setting up the beams on a
regular kitchen table top and building a barrier up around the entire edge of
the table to install the laser eyes into. i will be adding 5 mice on the
table top, and the idea is to use the generic ON/OFF signals of the optical
eyes to trasmit midi signals to my keyboard and into a computer to amp out to
speakers. the mice will move about and trip different beams to make different
sounds. i looked at jameco.com and found an infared transmitter/reciever kit
and a barrier photocell circuit, both which look pretty similar and look like
they could get the job done.

i first thought about getting a device that converts optival laser to voltage
because i read that the first thing that MIDI IN does is isolate the signal
into an optical signal to provent grounding and noise problems. then, i
thought i might be able to go from the laser to midi opto laser, then use some
sort of microprocessor to interpret the signals and form midi commands. is
there any written language or program that can do this?? i'm really in need of
trying to figure this out and any help that anyone might have would be greatly
appreciated.

thanks,

chad feeback (feebackcm@usfmail.sf.edu)
2728 buena vista dr.
ft. wayne, in 46805

you can call me collect at 219-471-5555 if you want to.

--- In tuning@egroups.com, Chad Feeback <feebackcm@u...> wrote:

http://www.egroups.com/message/tuning/16870

> hello.
>
> my name is chad feeback and i am seeking some sort of technical
assistance with my senior project for school. i'm doing a sound
installation using infared beams (optical lasers) and midi sound.
i'm
setting up the beams on a regular kitchen table top and building a
barrier up around the entire edge of the table to install the laser
eyes into. i will be adding 5 mice on the table top, and the idea is
to use the generic ON/OFF signals of the optical eyes to trasmit midi
signals to my keyboard and into a computer to amp out to speakers.
the mice will move about and trip different beams to make different
sounds.

Well... this might have some potential. Wendy Mae Chambers, the
doyenne of the Toy Piano set, used hamsters to play, simultaneously,
two toy pianos...

The two hampsters were named "Tina Mae" and "Tara Mae." However,
just as with humans, they had different compositional potential.
"Tara Mae" was a great star, and skampered and clattered over the toy
piano keyboard to great effect, whereas "Tina Mae" only sat still on
the keyboard and gloomily begged for food...

_______ _____ ___ __
Joseph Pehrson