Air drum with the Leap device

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdm_2FO44ug

This should work under Windows, Linux and Mac, though only Windows was tested yet.

Python 2.x (32-bit):

• http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/python-2.7.3.msi

PyGame (32-bit):

• http://pygame.org/ftp/pygame-1.9.1.win32-py2.7.msi

Leap Motion device and Leap app v0.7.3 or higher.

• http://www.leapmotion.com/

Alongside with the source file AirDrum.py, the Leap python API (again SDK v0.7.3 or higher) should be provided in the same directory: A copy of the following three files are available when you checkout, AirDrum.

• Leap.py
• _LeapPython.pyd (no underscore( _ ) from v0.7.4 onwards)
• Leap.dll

It is preferred to replace these three files from your local LeapSDK installation folder.

• \Leap_Developer_Kit_<v0.7.3 or higher>_<OS>\Leap_SDK\lib\Leap.py
• \Leap_Developer_Kit_<v0.7.3 or higher>_<OS>\Leap_SDK\lib\x86\Leap.dll
• \Leap_Developer_Kit_<v0.7.3 and lower>_<OS>\Leap_SDK\lib\x86\_LeapPython.pyd
• OR
• \Leap_Developer_Kit_<v0.7.4 or higher>_<OS>\Leap_SDK\lib\x86\LeapPython.pyd

If no Midi output is used, there have to be four audio files in the same directory as well:

• Kick_soft.ogg
• Kick_hard.ogg
• Snare_soft.ogg
• Snare_hard.ogg

If the Midi output want to be used instead, there has at least one Midi output device to be present.

Start the tool, connect the Leap and make sure the Leap app is running. Moving down a finger/hand/tool fast enough will trigger a drum. If you hit on the left side of the Leap, a snare drum will be triggered. On the right side, a kick drum will be triggered. The volume is depending on the speed of the finger/hand/tool.

• python AirDrum.py
• ...
• ...

"Press Enter to quit...", after you see this printed on the console, you can start drumming...

• *Happy Drumming... /\ || \\ // || /\ /*

If you selected to use a Midi output, the kick drum hit will be sent on note 36 (C1) and the snare drum hit on note 40 (E1). Note that if you require as little latency as possible during playing, you should absolutely select the Midi output instead of the audio output.

If you selected to use an audio output, there are two double sampled drum samples for each snare and kick drum. The hard sample will only play above a certain finger/hand/tool speed of the hit. If you notice sound playback failures, try setting the sample rate of the audio device initialization to a higher value (the last parameter of the function pygame.mixer.pre_init() in DrumListener::init_audio())

For better performance and clean console: Search for 'DEBUG' in the AirDrum.py and comment out any 'print' lines. Comment char is '#'.