Drums

You never know when you'll be walking down the street and want to bust out a few sweet beats. This Electronic Drum machine lets you bring a drum machine with you wherever you go, and create and layer beats on the fly. The shirt has nine different drum kits built-in, including Rock drums, Techno Punk drums, Classic Jazz drums, and Scratchy drums. Drums can be played and looped by tapping the drum pads and controls on the front of the shirt, and loops can be recorded up to three minutes in length. You can mix-and-match drums from different kits in the same loops, and even play all seven at once if you're feeling really adventurous. Read More

With a few notable exceptions, the fine art of tabletop tapping has been a purely non-digital experience for most people. Now, iDevice users can turn their rhythmic creations into real-time drum sounds, courtesy of the TableDrum app from Sweden's Dohi Entertainment. Rather than have virtual drummers tap out the beat on touchscreen icons, this app uses the device's microphone to pick out individual sounds made by thrumping on different surfaces, and allows the user to assign them to the various parts of a drum kit. Read More

The ultimate air duo of keyboards and guitar has now taken a step closer to becoming a full band with the creation of the Air Drums by Israeli electronics tinkerer Maayan Migdal. His system is comprised of a couple of modified hand rakes, a pair of sandals, the ever-useful Arduino Uno and some custom circuitry which feeds through to a laptop via a standard MIDI interface. Read More

At the Winter NAMM show in Anaheim recently, Korg unveiled a new oriental version of its famous Wavedrum percussion synthesizer, designed specifically for Middle Eastern music. For Musikmesse 2011 in Frankfurt, the company has announced that its Wavedrum technology has been reduced down into a compact, portable, playable pad with a built-in speaker and effects. The Wavedrum Mini also features a clip sensor which is said to allow users to transform finger taps and hand slaps made on just about any surface into synthesized, amplified percussive sounds. Read More

There was a time when the tempo of a band's performance was left in the capable hands of the drummer. But as pre-programmed, sequenced music started to creep into both studio and live work, the beat-master found himself being shackled by the pace set by the invader's metronome-like click track. Now researchers at Queen Mary, University of London's Centre for Digital Music have developed some clever software that puts the power to control tempo back into the mighty limbs of the band's time-keeper. Read More

Street musicians or solo performers who want to add a virtual backing band but don't relish the prospect of sacrificing the feel of the music to overly digitized loopers or sequencers may be interested in the Kicktronic system from Flotechnic. If you stomp your foot rhythmically while playing, then you might as well put it to more efficient use by tapping the system's foot sensor to bring in a bass drum, snare drum, crash cymbal and bass. Read More

After a disappointing year of sales for the industry’s leading rhythm games it would seem as though it’s time for a bit of a shake up, and from what we’ve read so far, Rock Band should be getting the upper hand. Following Harmonix’s announcement of Rock Band Network beta, it has now revealed details of Rock Band 3. Set to bring a whole new level of realism to the genre, the most immediate and exciting improvement is its compatibility with “real instruments," thereby offering budding musicians an exciting interactive platform on which to learn. Read More

The OCTAPAD SPD-30 digital percussion pad from Roland puts hundreds of instrument sounds from around the globe and 50 different kits at the tip of your drumsticks. The portable unit features eight isolated trigger pads, multi-effects, and external trigger inputs for onward connectivity to such things as digital hi-hat and kick controllers. Also on offer is the ability to overdub on recorded loops in real-time and backup tracks to USB memory. Read More

Most times when budding rockstars pick up a guitar and start to play for the first time, it sounds like they’re stepping on a cat – well, to everyone else in the room, anyway. If you are the parent of one of these musicians you might want to introduce them to Paper Jamz, an affordable and innovative play instrument that provides an instant rock star experience and open-ended play, say its makers, WowWee Toys. The one-inch thick stringless guitars (slightly thicker drums) are touch-sensitive, which means you only have to the strum or tap the special circuit-embedded paper on the surface to get a professional sound. Rock on! Read More