When we were kids, many of us wanted to play the drums but were discouraged by parents more concerned with angry neighbors and damaged hearing than musically fulfilled children. We certainly got our payback when we forsook all those years of expensive private school to become bloggers, but can't help but wonder how different things would have been if we'd had Jaime Oliver's Silent Drum Controller at our disposal. It's a transparent shell covered with an elastic head that the player can stretch with their fingers. A camera positioned to the side detects the shape of the deformation and translates that into sound, chillingly demonstrated below. Yes, it is multi-touch, and was clever enough to win the recent Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at Georgia Tech. The competition was partly sponsored by
Harmonix, so could we see a Silent Drum in
Rock Band 3? For the sake of future generations, we certainly hope so.
[Via
Crave]
posted March 11th 2009 8:24AM
dude's creepy man. and i'm no music afficionado, but that ain't no drum. it's more like those weird music gloves.
yeah this isn't a drum. and personally i think someone playing some kinda song with this thing would make for a much better video
yeah all we have now is a nice addition to 2001: A Space Odyssey
+1 to creepy dude
What this looks like to me is a synth - strictly speaking the sound isn't made by striking the instrument, it isn't a drum. Most synthesizers are silent.
The expressions on the musician's face make it look like he's making awkward, non-eye-contact love to the instrument. I certainly don't want to see what he drew on the fabric...
GO BACK TO WHAT YOUR GOOD AT JAMIE. . . . cooking!!!
Ditto.
http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/the-big-food-fight/eat-to-save-your-life-07-12-18_p_1.html
I'm pretty sure its not the same Jamie Oliver. However, I do find it coincidental that Jamie Oliver (the TV chef) is the drummer in his band. He's actually quite decent.
If you actually read the thing properly you'd have read JAIME Oliver, not Jamie Oliver.
I made the same mistake but I noticed it before commenting.
Not really a drum as such it isn't really struck as a drum would be. It seems to work more like a rubber Theremin! All very nice BUT not really a drum. Not the most efficient way of reading pressure.
The reason he doesn't strike it as a drum is because the video is too slow.
My tablo controller which has been around for years uses also uses fabric drape sensing but is scanned at 1kHz and has an aftertouch so you can stroke it or strike it or both.
Search google for "adrian freed tablo"
You all better be glad you didn't pick up drums. Been playing for 15 years and have spent more on my instrument than my vehicles over the years.
That pretty much applies to any instrument, although in a lot of cases we make more money than the instruments cost... of course once you make the money back, it's time for a new instrument! (or mics, cables, stands, amps, monitors, cases, etc.)
Puka!
I think drum is in reference to the shape, like Oil drum not the instrument's sound for percussion.
ditto.
I kept watching waiting for something interesting to happen.
Just saw a creepy guy make a bunch of weird noises.
but that's what they still teach in most colleges - that this is SERIOUS music!
then students graduate with a music composition degree and realize they now have to do something else (like run a business) to make a living!
Radiohead will be using one of these very soon... count on it...
radiohead has been making these kinds of sounds no problem for almost a decade
sci-fi shows from the 60s made ominous noises as such... without computers.
(insert clever title for creepy horror movie here) Music by Jamie E Oliver, starring Jamie E Oliver
If he could play some Zeppelin on it, then I'd be impressed.
ide love to see what happens when the elastic piece snaps and breaks apart.
"I'd". Heard of it? You know, the combination of "I" and "did" or "would". Not "ide".
As others have said, not a drum in the traditional sense, but a very cool alternative controller. I can see this being really useful for sound design or tweaky forms of music. I always wanted a Continuum Controller from Haken Audio...
I'm glad I watched the videos before I posted the link to Roland's V-Drums (or anyone else's for that matter) and said, "Uhhh, this has been around five-ever already".
1. Go to google.com.
2. Search for "define: drum"
3. STFU, you idiots.
Yeah, it's not much of a "drum," and yeah, what this guy's doing seems kind of lame right now, alone, but imagine what a great synth controller this could be. No more thousands of knobs and switches; you can control the pitch and the effect at once. It's twice what a synth key can do.
It is only multi-touch over a two dimensional plane.
by that I mean from the aspect of the camera.
It is not true multitouch with completely independent points because of the drape between fingers.
It's a synthesizer, shaped like a drum, but not a drum. As a synth, it looks way cool to play. There are hopefully better ways to read pressure on a membrane and to translate that into sound... that's what Microsoft should be doing with Surface of whatever that big touch screen table is called.
You are right you need displacement and pressure for good musical instrument controllers. The slabs (third place winner) has both as does my tablo controller.
i could see trent reznor using this in his music. he loves to experiment with new ways to create music through synth.
I believe they mean "drum" as in "a hollow cylinder with a membrane stretched across one or each end". That would be my best guess anyway. I was waiting through the whole video for him to start beating on it... :(