

“That’s why we did live looping because it creates an element of chance. “A lot of people, after they make a record like that, will immediately go to something like Ableton, Logic, or Mainstage, and be like, ‘Okay, let’s get our tracks, and whatever we can’t play, the computer will play,’ but we didn’t want to do that,” Molad says in an interview with Shure. This means one less thing to think about while they perform. Many drummers will often eschew using triggers, choosing instead to play along to a track. This allows a single tom or snare to become a multi sampler that, unlike the Mandala pad, you can incorporate 10 distinct sounds rather than just a filter range or effect.Ĭheck Chang out in this video for a more in-depth look into how this technology works. There are 10 total zones you can play and the zones can either blend into each other seamlessly or remain separate with hard cut-offs. “The sensor picks up all those nuances and turns them into whatever you want them to be.” For example, a rim shot will play a different sample than a straight hit or a drum roll (and the center of the drum head will produce a different sound than say, hitting the rim or shell of the drum, or even just the sides). Players first “train” the sensor to pick up the different timbres and location fields of different hits. Ian Chang says, “It translates the physicality of drumming into whatever customizable, sonic environments you want want to create.” The Sunhouse Sensory Percussion tool is much more than a drum trigger it turns a single drum into an infinite world of electronic sound parameters, effects, and options.

Sensory percussion turns any single drum into a multi-sampler.
Synthesia mandala software#
For example if you wanted to affect the pitch of a drum, the software would allow you to have it play higher when you hit it more towards the middle, higher as you hit it towards the outside, or you could match pitch to the velocity. Any parameter of any effect can be set to the velocity or the position. The individual zones, position rings, and velocity levels can be used to trigger different instruments, effects parameters, or volume changes. In its current iteration, mk2.9, both values are transmitted via USB MIDI to a computer, where they can be interpreted by any MIDI software.įor practical playing, the pad can be concentrically divided into as little as one or as many as six playing zones via its Virtual Brain software. It has 128 strike-position detection rings from its center out to its edges, along with 127 levels of velocity sensitivity. What he uses: Pads, specifically Synesthesia Mandala pads, which he developed.Īlready drumming at crazy elevations, Danny Carey uses his Mandala drum pads to bring his sound to new, creative heights.

Here are four of our favorite drummers today making use of cyborg sets to create some of the coolest, genre-defying music around. We’ve been following the incorporation of electronic elements in drum kits for a long time, and it’s taken a bunch of forms, but these days both the innovations and the artists implementing them are reaching new heights.

So when drummers are also able to coax vast worlds of sound and tone to accompany the barrage of beats, it becomes even more exciting. Rhythm is one of the great unifiers in music and there’s nothing quite like watching a live drummer hammer the skins. Whether you’re sitting down to a jazz concert, flipping out at a death metal concert, or standing around to watch a group of indie darlings, towards the back of the stage you’re almost always guaranteed to see a drum kit.
