transforming data into sound through electropads

[lobitaazulita]

i am doing a project archiving sounds of different cactus for research. There is no microphone (apart from a microbiology microphone that costs $6000) that can pick up the sounds of plants.. u have to do it through electric waves using electropads (used in electrocardiogram exams).

i am trying to connect the electropads into my computer to give me data (i dont need sound, just data of the electric current it depicts) to transform that data into sound. Theoretically if I connect the electropads to a MIDI and that into my computer it should work on the sending-data-in bit. I don't know what sound software to receive this data with though, nor if my system is correct in the first place.

If anyone can please enlighten me to some knowledge on this topic or direct me to a software that transforms codes into sound (i thought of MAX msp?) that would be awesome!
Thank you

[MOF]

You will need some means of converting the voltage to midi e.g. a drum pad interface converts the piezo voltage from a drum pad to different levels of midi velocity. I don’t know what voltage you get out of the pads you’re using but I would imagine they’ll need amplifying first.
Once you’ve done that you’ll need to leave your DAW recording for many hours presumably and I don’t know if there’s a maximum record time that might be insufficient for your project.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Why re-invent the wheel when someone else has done all the hard work already? There's a very neat and elegant solution that does precisely what you want and need here: electopads in with adjustable sensitivity, MIDI note/velocity data out:

https://www.midisprout.com/instructions-midi-sprout

[BJG145]

Recording cacti? Watch out for the audio spikes.

[Hugh Robjohns]

No need to be prickly about it...

[The Elf]

Imagine the horrors of the durum solo...

[ManFromGlass]

Too cool!
I remember reading The Secret Life of Plants many moons ago, particularly how plants react to specific stimuli. The resulting "cacti music" could be quite interesting.

[James Perrett]

That's an interesting project - although I'd approach it slightly differently by recording the raw voltages and then converting them to MIDI (or whatever else you want) later. That way you know that you are collecting everything that you might possibly need at a later date.

An old colleague of mine used to use a Labjack system which aren't too expensive and seem easy to use.

https://labjack.com/

[MOF]

Why re-invent the wheel when someone else has done all the hard work already? There's a very neat and elegant solution that does precisely what you want and need here: electopads in with adjustable sensitivity, MIDI note/velocity data out:

https://www.midisprout.com/instructions ... idi-sprout

I clicked on this link thinking it would be an archived SOS April fool. I've had a browse around the site and it looks for real. I'm still not sure how much data comes out per second and how long you would need to record for to get anything meaningful (once sped up?), it implies it's all in real time.
I won't be buying one myself, a bit too random for my tracks.