Hackable Instruments has created a musical cube that can be altered by the user to generate the desired sound and tone. Constructed from wood, the cube has been conceptualized by Andrew McPherson and Victor Zappi as an instrument unlike any other. This digital musical device creates sound when the user touches, taps, or slides his/her finger on the sensor strip on one of the wooden cube’s sides.
McPherson began raising money on Kickstarter last year to fund their first project, TouchKeys, a system of placing touchscreen sensor strips on a piano's keys to enable players’ expressive control over the keyboard without having to reach for buttons, dials, or a pitch wheel while playing. The new digital cube innovation from Hackable Instruments incorporates TouchKeys' technology. TouchKeys was created for seasoned musicians with significant piano experience. McPherson and Zappi’s newest development doesn’t require any prior music experience to use.
The digital music playing cube is considered to be one of the easiest possible instruments to learn to play. Even though it only contains a few notes and sounds, the wooden music box totally enables the user to take all creative liberty when creating music; this is similar to when musicians play the spoons or the jug that produce limited sounds.
Image via EPSRC
The wooden music cube measures 8-inches, and is battery-powered. It contains a two-dimensional capacitive touch sensor strip, the same sensor used in TouchKeys, and another force-sensing resistor that acts as a pressure sensor on the face of the cube. On the other side of the cube, there is a built-in output speaker. The internal components of the cube consist of a BeagleBone Black development board and a Linux-running audio interface. The other internal custom software was personally designed by Zappi.
Zappi and McPherson invented two differing editions of the cube. The first cube contains software that produces pressure-based sound, while the second cube emits tiny variations in frequency that count on the location of where the sensor strips are touched. Both of these cubes allow musicians to explore their own musicality.
The cubes were tested by a group of 10 diverse volunteers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) who ranged from classically trained musicians to EDM ragers. McPherson and Zappi did not encourage the musicians to play the cube in any particular manner, rather allowing them to teach themselves how to use it. Some musicians applied moisture to the cube to adjust the timbre, while others explored the degrees of freedom in locating its unconventional features.
The project has received $170,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), as the Hackable Instruments design duo plans to research additional usage for the musical cube.
Story via EPSRC
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