Motion Sensing 02, www.thummer.com

This demo a "Capel" prototype with internal electronic motions sensors. Moving the Thummer from side to side changes its loudness; moving it up and down changes its pitch.

Matthew Darke, the performer, is holding the Thummer in his left hand. Imagine that, instead, it is strapped to his right forearm, thus supporting, stabilizing, and positioning the Thummer, allowing the fingers and thumbs of both hands to play the Thummer. We tried this, but the thing was so dang heavy -- around 1.5 kilos (three pounds) -- that it darn near broke his arm. The later Eaton prototype weighs in at under 450 grams (about one pound), and we think we can make 'em even lighter in future...so the motion-sensing thing should work out OK, once we have time and money to implement it.

Motion sensing could provide control of up to SIX additional variables -- translation along the x/y/x axes and rotation around them, too.

That's a lot of expressive potential!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Thummer
• Thumtronics
• electronic
• musical
• instrument
• MIDI

[JimPlamondon]

I appreciate your comment.

A future versioncould certainly be cordless. The first commercial version is expected to use USB for power and data. The USB cable could connect to a hip-pack that was a battery-powered USB host & wireless transmitter.

You are correct that the prototype is perhaps less than an exemplar of modern industrial design. ;-)

[hardcorechicano]

can I have one??? can i but one?? thas nice...

[tektive]

I LIKE IT! just a couple things, is it possible to go cordless, and hire the guy who designs for Apple, the prototype looks like it came out of the 70's. Beautiful sound though, it has wonderful potential. I don't know why but I think if you add lasers, I could see this in a lot of rock bands!