With Visikord you can indulge your musical sensibilities or add a killer feature to your next party. The Demo/PLAY version is for use at home and it’s FREE.

1. Download and install Visikord Demo/PLAY on your PC
2. Get a Kinect from the store (or borrow one from a friend) and plug in into your PC
3. Play some music from your iPod or PC and go!

Why use Visikord at home?

Because instead of just listening to a song, you create the experience of it. And it feels good to be in a space in which everything moves only in response to your own moves!

Playing music visually with the whole body gives a good workout as well, and it helps with developing music skills. Performance can be recorded and played back or turned it into a music video.

Last but not least, you can always throw in a party around it in your house. There won’t be shortage of people dancing in front of the screen, for enjoyment of others or of their own.

What hardware does it require?

Visikord runs on a PC with Microsoft Kinect plugged into the PC’s USB port. The PC must be a Windows platform (XP/Vista/7) with dual core or better, and a dedicated graphics card (NVidia, ATI) is recommended. Visikord also works with the upcoming Asus Xtion depth sensor.

When is it available?

The home version is available now and it’s free! It includes all the necessary drivers and support, and you can give it a test run to see how it works even without the Kinect. Click on the button below to download.

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Where does the name come from?

Like harpsichord and clavichord are instruments that produce actual music when their strings (chords) are plucked, Visikord produces visual music when its virtual “kords” are plucked or hit. Hence the name.

How does it help develop music skills?

To visually play a song with Visikord for maximum enjoyment, you have to make moves that are right on the beat or melody (or voice), and you get feedback whether you do it right or wrong. So it stands in between only listening to music and playing it on a musical instrument, closer to one or the other depending on how much effort you put into it.

This LA Times article explains what happens in the brain when we participate in music vs. passively listen to it, so you can decide for yourself where on that scale playing visual music with Visikord is. Also, a brain health clinic here in Santa Barbara, CA is using Visikord in their music therapy sessions.

 

How many graphics combinations exist?

The number is practically infinite. Screens are unique combinations of 1000+ backgrounds (derived from software called Milkdrop and its background scripts made by artists who receive proceeds from the paid version of the software), of dancer’s avatar’s skins (which can also use user-supplied jpeg images), of active graphics effects called Hand Powers and Elements, and of course of the movement, position, and body posture of the dancer at the moment, which dramatically affect the placement of all other elements. Every moment is unrepeatable — unless captured in a recording and played back.

All graphics elements (backgrounds, skins, Hand Powers, and Elements) are plugins so users with knowledge of programming and graphics design skill can make an unlimited number of new ones.