Dub Cadet: A Gyrocope-to-MIDI, sound synthesis LED Ball for everyone!

I wanted to share something I've been working on for about a year now. I'm going to launch a kickstarter real soon that will allow anyone to get an open source kit or a competed instrument to play with. Enjoy!

The Dub Cadet is a powerful tool for bringing anyone into the exciting world of musical performance. Jam with friends, use it as a robotic practice buddy, or break the ice at a gathering. Improvised music has the charming ability to help us discover new possibilities through unexpected outcomes and 'happy accidents'. Use it for musical brainstorming, songwriting, or just for fun and be empowered to make bold new grooves. With the Dub Cadet in your hands, the possibilities are endless. Small motions lead to big variations in the music!

While I learned the creative process from the best of the best at Pixar, I picked up a little secret of character animation. It's more like a fundamental principle, but knowing it or not makes the difference between average and superior animation. The secret is also very obvious, but it often gets ignored: every joint and every limb of the body moves in an arc as it travels through space. In other words, rotation is the fundamental action by which animals and humans move.

This little secret marinated with my longstanding pursuit of musical exploration until one day I had an inspiration: I wanted to design an instrument that used only rotation to make music. No keys to press, no levers to pull, no strings to strum. It would be a totally unconventional approach to music: a ball. Since rotation is 3-dimentional, it would create a dynamic and super-unique way to structure sound. I was very curious to see how an instrument could use the motion curves of human movements to generate music. The Dub Cadet is the fruit of this pursuit.

I was driven by an inner urge to produce something new and simple. I began to think of the ball as a big bulging director's wand, that would allow someone to set the pace and feel of the music the way my choir directors did. But I wanted it to do more: I wanted it to compose the notes on-the-fly so the music would be new and original every time. It would be the music machine right out of my wildest dreams. Well, thanks to the open hardware community, I have gone from concept to final prototype in a little less than a year! Check it out:

-Noah

Brillliant you will sell lots of these

Thanks for the enthusiasm, I hope so too!

And here is the kickstarter link to learn more about this project:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1873232700/dub-cadet-next-level-musical-fun-for-everyone