The Wiinstrument: Play the Drums Using a Wiimote

Wiinstrument iconYou probably won’t see your favorite band playing with a Nintendo Wii remote at its next concert. After all, what does a game console have in common with making music?

If that previous sentence sounded weird, let me enlighten you. The Wiinstrument is a nifty application that lets you use a Wii remote and a Nunchuck controller to play drums on the Mac.

If you have a Bluetooth-enabled Mac (and all current models are), you could be well on your way to setting up a relatively inexpensive MIDI controller that could give your music career a boost to superstardom. Disclaimer: Wiinstrument may not actually make you a rock god.

Once the Wii remote is synced to your Mac, you can jam by smacking the remote and Nunchuck against the air. You can switch instruments by pressing the buttons or directional pad, choosing from bass drums, electric and acoustic snares, hand claps and hi-hats. The software even recognizes velocity, producing different sounds depending on how hard you swing the controllers.

Wiinstrument interface

You can even record your beats into GarageBand, allowing you to create some pretty realistic sounding drum loops. Screenfashion, the software’s developer, provides a comprehensive tutorial on its web site.

Wiinstrument Connect RemoteScreenfashion leaves room for daring coders to tweak. The developer offers the source code for download, and you can also modify the app to use the Wii remote to trigger custom loops, clips or videos.

I had a little trouble syncing the Wii remote with the my MacBook the first time, but the installation instructions list a number of troubleshooting methods, so I got it running after a few attempts. Apparently Leopard remedies many of these issues, so if you have the new operating system, you should be in good shape.

The Wiinstrument is free software and is currently in beta.