Background
Thank you for visiting! This is a support page for Dr Evangelos Himonides' work on the development of the Continuous Response Measurement Apparatus (CReMA).
More information regarding the theoretical framework upon which the development of the CReMA was based can be found here:
- Himonides, E. (2009). Mapping a beautiful voice: theoretical considerations. Journal of Music, Technology and Education, 2(1), 25–54. http://doi.org/10.1386/jmte.2.1.25/1
An introduction of the apparatus itself is available here:
- Himonides, E. (2011). Mapping a beautiful voice: The continuous response measurement apparatus (CReMA). Journal of Music, Technology and Education, 4(1), 5–25. http://doi.org/10.1386/jmte.4.1.5_1
The Software
Although the original CReMA comprises advanced technologies, including medical grade GSR data acquisition technology, as well as a Doepfer R2M Ribbon controller which generates control voltages, the underlying principle for recording judge/listener evaluation data in real time is inspired by the original work of scholars at Florida State University and the development of the Continuous Response Digital Interface (CRDI see: http://www.music.fsu.edu/Music-Research-Centers/Center-for-Music-Research/CRDI).
Careful study of the available literature suggests that any controller could potentially be exploited in experimental research in affective response measurement using the much more accessible Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). Depending on the task and research design, a researcher could even use a standard MIDI piano keyboard for recording response data. The detail (i.e. quantisation / resolution) offered by the MIDI protocol is more than enough for most empirical research foci in the field.
Since the first presentation of the CReMA at ICMPC 2008 in Bologna, Italy, I have received over two hundred requests for an accessible version of the technology. This led to the development of the CReMA MIDI. CReMA MIDI is nothing more than an easy way to export MIDI note or controller data into a meaningful text file (comma separated values aka .csv) for further statistical analyses using either popular Open Source or commercial spreadsheet software (OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Microsoft Office), or Open Source or commercial statistical analyses packages (PSPP, R, SPSS, STATA).
Until 2015, I had supported many researchers in setting up related experiments, and used Piet Van Oostrum's code (mf2txt [MIDI file to text]written in C). Unfortunately, Piet's code is difficult to decipher by postgraduate researchers in education that don't have a strong background in computing, and also poorly documented, which resulted myself having to perform the conversions on the students' behalf on each occasion.
Moving on from Pied's clever utility, probably the biggest ever contribution to computational musicology has to be music21. Music21 is a Python-based toolkit for computer-aided musicology, developed by Michael Scott Cuthbert. I have no words to describe the importance of this work and am in complete awe of Michael's (and other contributors') contribution to the extended field.
But using Music21 for something as simple as converting a simple MIDI file to meaningful note and controller data, organised in time, is still something that might appear as challenging for the non initiated in programming researcher.
CReMA MIDI Free Software
Enter CReMA MIDI. I have developed CReMA MIDI as a free resource for the academic, research, enthusiast, experimental, creative community. It is simple to use, robust, very fast, and extremely convenient. It is completely free to use, but it would be much appreciated if reference to my published work was provided, so that the impact of this work can be measured.
CReMA MIDI has been developed in Python, using classes available in the python-midi library.
Download
Windows
- CReMA MIDI v.4.0 (compressed executable installer)
CReMA MIDI by Dr Evangelos Himonides is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Mac OS
- CReMA MIDI v.4.0 (zipped archive of bottled MAC application)
CReMA MIDI by Dr Evangelos Himonides is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
About Dr Evangelos Himonides
Dr Evangelos Himonides is Professor of Technology, Education, and Music at University College London. He is Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society. Evangelos is the developer of the Sounds of Intent online resource.
