Drum Machine – XOXX Composer from Axel Bluhme on Vimeo.
Can you design a drum machine that does more than simply hide its workings inside an invisible box?
XOXX Composer does just that. A project by Axel Bluhme, it turns the inner functions of sampling, looping, and sequencing, into tangible, kinetic, sculptural form. Wheels turn. Magnets trigger sounds. And in what looks like the love child of a 606 and a player piano, you get a mechanical take on patterned sound.
Full description:
A drum machine that is fun and easy to use
This project started with a curiosity to understand when, why and how people take their first steps into producing music. The goal is to inspire and allow this exploration even though there might be lack of confidence or knowledge.
A tangible sound arranger that uses magnets to activate sound samples and that is very easy to engage with. Capture sounds from your surroundings or sample records, simply let curiosity and creativity lead the way to quickly create unique beats.
The physical interface is made up from eight rotating discs allowing the user to layer up to eight different sounds.
Each set of eight discs are colour coded and each individual disc in the set has its own pattern so as to allow the user to create their own mental system and means of organising their sounds.
Every disc is quantised into four bars, which is indicated by the coloured lines on their faces, and each bar is divided into four steps. That means every disc has sixteen steps which allows the user to explore a variety of different music styles and degrees of complexity.
The project will be shown at Ugly Duck in Bermondsey (London), as part of a collaboration between Sonos and the Royal College of Art.
Axel has other industrial design ideas, like how to make food truck kitchens work. (Your hipster future, basically, is right here.)
Great stuff! Thanks, Johannes Lohbihler, for sending this our way.