Comments on: Automatic pneumatic drum kit

By: draeath

draeath — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:47:53 +0000

@Jim

Yea, and so drum computers are equally useless. Me and my hard drive full of music that several friends enjoy would disagree with you.

By: Fauzii

Fauzii — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:20:46 +0000

Yeah, Captured! by Robots was pretty good when I saw them in 2004. I had been imagining this thing for a long time before that, but when I saw his set-up I realized that I had to build it. Later that year I was in a band, we could not find a drummer, so we built WizardFingers. While WizardFingers does not have the ability to shift accent and play softly, we were an electronic rock band that played loud. We wanted live drums and not drum samples through a PA. Then, as oft happens the band fell apart and the drummer was subverted by Art to be involved in some dance performances.

To clear up a few things about the test videos, the software system was generating the drum patterns autonomously. It can be hard to listen to, but it never repeats itself, and can be mesmerizing over the course of 10 minutes or longer. It was a fun and painful experiment.

By: rooftop ridicule

rooftop ridicule — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:04:24 +0000

I haven’t seen anything robotic drum like Captured! by Robots. I think good songwriting can overcome the limitations of any instrument, including robotic drums, even if they lack dynamics. As long as the timing is right.

By: Omar Martinez

Omar Martinez — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:54:00 +0000

This is pretty cool but Captured! by Robots has already been doing this since 1997. Pneumatic drummers, guitarist, and horn section. http://www.capturedbyrobots.com/

By: Jeff Wallin

Jeff Wallin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:04:41 +0000

Nice.

By: James Lagnese

James Lagnese — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:59:13 +0000

Just spreading bullshit.

By: tom

tom — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:55:15 +0000

@james Lagnese

I have played the drums for 31 years. Your argument is null and void.

Just spreading the love.

By: Vonskippy

Vonskippy — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:58:38 +0000

Might have been interesting – I’ll never know, I couldn’t get past the illegible lime green headline.

By: Jeff Wallin

Jeff Wallin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:43:00 +0000

@james Lagnese

Who was that directed towards?
Not that it matters to me. I am just interested by musical hacks.

By: James Lagnese

James Lagnese — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:00:27 +0000

I’ve played the drums for 30 years. I understand more than you do…

By: xrazorwirex

xrazorwirex — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:58:42 +0000

I couldn’t finish the video; not only do these people have no understanding of the instrument as already stated, but they have no rhythm whatsoever… plus there’s that goofy girl dancing to the air compressor that’s almost as loud as the drums….

It sounded cool though – I’d like to have an actually pragmatic setup like that to use instead of a drum machine for playing power metal with myself or something… that’s about it though…

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:51:44 +0000

To distill what EFH said, playing the drums requires intelligence, talent and knowledge that a machine cannot replicate. It’s an example of mental masturbation. It has no use.

By: Laminar

Laminar — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:40:16 +0000

Double-clicking on the video got it to play for me. But it included the air compressor running, so it was hard to tell what else was going on.

By: EFH

EFH — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:36:53 +0000

I don’t mean to be a hater, but we’ve seen a bunch of these lately, and they all have the same failings. As drummers all know, drums and cymbals make different sounds depending on where you hit them and how hard you hit them, and these systems all ignore these fact. A fixed hammer actuated by a solenoid is never going to sound like a drumstick wielded by a human. The striker needs to be able to move in a plane parallel to the drum head, and it needs dynamic control. Even that completely ignores the different kinds of strokes that drummers can use: you can hit a drum and let the stick stay just bouncing on the head, for example.

This system includes a hammer *underneath* the hi-hat, which really makes me cringe; it belies near total ignorance of the dynamics of that instrument. Next time, collaborate with some musicians!

By: HogieWan

HogieWan — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:32:19 +0000

wow – by the website, it looks like he built this thing in ’91.

I couldn’t get the video to load, but there is no mention of dynamics control. If you can’t control how hard the drums are hit, you are better off with software drums.