BeatBearing project weds ball bearings, elegance to make jams

Rest assured, we've seen a fair amount of totally sexy music makers in our day, but Peter Bennett's BeatBearing has instantly become one of our favorites. The project is described as a "simple tangible user interface that uses ball bearings to program a sequencer," and it enables the user to create a myriad melodies using sounds from the basic components of a drum kit. As with most musical things, this truly is better appreciated through video, so do yourself a favor and click on through to see it in action. And yes, we too are waiting in tense anticipation for this thing to go commercial.

[Via Technabob]

[phrank @ Feb 25th 2008 12:23PM]

Huh. Um...Potentially interesting with more flexibility, but now, not very at all. For one, it takes WAY too long to set up a simple house beat. How are you going to mix up live sequencing?

I thought the idea of a MIDI device controlled by ball bearings would be awesome, until I saw that it's not using the...ballness of the bearings at all. Those things can be rolled, can't they? Yep. Rolled, bounced, spun, they can be rolled down sloped canals. If, say, each contact that they go into can be thought of as a plane with two axes, each axis controlling a different MIDI parameter, now it could get interesting. Have a tray like that, with a ball bearing in each one, and you can just roll them around in their spaces to control pitch, EQ, envelopes...any two elements at a time. But this offers no functionality that, say, FL or any software sequencer can't do much more easily.

Think of the ball bearings as relative to those antique ball mice, except you can control up to five mice with each finger!

[Dylan @ Jan 16th 2008 3:02AM]

That's awesome!

[Xyna @ Jan 16th 2008 3:04AM]

I was actually quite disappointed with this, and prefer the Tenori-On by far.

[nDee @ Jan 16th 2008 3:11AM]

I can see this will be on shelf
on ToyRus very soon.
(and got off shelf because of safety hazard very soon)

[Mr. S. @ Jan 16th 2008 3:12AM]

Wait... the device clearly has no wires or light emitting device. So its clearly sitting on a screen, and is he just running it though a sequence?

Smoke and Mirrors me thinks. (hope i'm wrong)

[drakono @ Jan 16th 2008 9:24AM]

Good call. I checked out the pdf from the website, and it's clearly sitting on a screen. I assume it's a touch-screen, though. I don't think the demo has canned audio.

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/5939/beatbearingjl6.jpg

[Reader @ Jan 16th 2008 3:36AM]

More cowbell!

[ethan @ Jan 16th 2008 3:46AM]

I WANT I WANT I WANT! ok DIY'ers. How can I make one of these?

[Jackson @ Jan 16th 2008 3:45AM]

This is like the embedded music creator on most SE phones. Its fun for about 5 minutes then you never touch it again because its so limited.

[Reader @ Jan 16th 2008 4:22AM]

I also hate the word myriad, used correctly or incorrectly. It never flows in a sentence all that well, especially when people use it in the wrong way.

[Matt Noble @ Jan 16th 2008 6:29AM]

My God That Is Sweet!

[master_sword @ Jan 16th 2008 8:02AM]

would be much more cool if the "cowbell" (top row) actually sounded like a cowbell and not some fischer price toy...

[juno 106 @ Jan 16th 2008 8:25AM]

Philistine ! The sound set is from the classic Roland 808 drum machine

[mike_nova @ Jan 16th 2008 8:41AM]

watch @ 49-51, why does it miss the hit on the top right of the sequence? Maybe some tomfoolery?

[Luke @ Jan 16th 2008 10:55AM]

If you take a look at it, the light under the ball goes out for a second. Like it was making a bad connection or something. Take a look, it goes out then comes back.

[rockintom @ Jan 16th 2008 10:22AM]

Wait, what's so great about the Tenori-On? Monome seriously beat them to the punch.

[Johan S @ Jan 16th 2008 4:55PM]

Isn't there a tablet pc touchscreen "virtual" version of this I've seen before? It's easier to use cause it let's you drag different types of balls for various effects/pitch changes.

[Yermom @ Jan 16th 2008 6:16PM]

Agreed - use the word correctly or not at all :)

[bl4h @ Jan 17th 2008 8:50AM]

we just spent hundreds of years evolving away from this sort of thing. whats next actual instruments ?

[erin @ Jan 22nd 2008 12:50PM]

jesus, you felt strongly enough about this to post your comment here AND on the youtube video page. exactly what chapter in evolution did humans use ball bearings to create synthesized beats?

[Willy @ Jan 17th 2008 12:06PM]

Check out Fruity Loops. Software application that does the same thing as this but you can really break it down and change tempo as well as time signatures. It even looks the same as this except it's on a computer monitor rather than in front of you.