collision detection: Now <i>that</i>'s a drum machine

October 18, 2004

Now that's a drum machine

A couple of geeks at the University of Louisana have created a robot drum-set -- drums that drum themselves. They hooked up a bunch of actuators to the various components of a kit, then wired it to accept MIDI inputs. There's information on how it works here, and some mind-melting video of it in action here. They call it PEART -- Pneumatic and Electronic Actuated RoboT -- in honor of Neil Peart, the histrionically hyperactive drummer for Rush. I'd love to see this thing pulling off some of Peart's 128th-note high-tom rolls from one of Rush's barely-listenable albums, like Grace Under Pressure.

Maybe for their next project they could design a virtual Geddy Lee, using some ultrahighpitched acoustic device that emits notes seven octaves above high C and knocks sparrows dead out of the air.

(Thanks to Incoming Signals for this one!)

Posted by Clive Thompson at October 18, 2004 02:19 AM

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Comments

Are you familiar with the work of the director Chris Cunningham?

His Monkey Drummer piece pre-empts that drumming robot in great style... It's available on a DVD retrospective of his work, but there's a wee clip online here:

http://www.designboom.com/snapshots/venezia/cunningam.html

Posted by: Tony at October 18, 2004 8:13 AM

You've probably already seen the CGI music video called "Animusic," but they have a piece called 'Drum Machine' that resembles PEART. Oddly enough, it's also MIDI-driven

http://www.animusic.com/dvd-info-video.html

Posted by: Mark at October 18, 2004 1:05 PM

Neat stuff, although it has the feel of a drum machine - without the volume knob!

Posted by: gord at October 18, 2004 3:53 PM

Excellent links all around! Yes, I'd suspected this wasn't the world's first robot drummer. Because of course there's Ringo Starr.

Oh, that's a cheap joke. Actually, he's an incredibly weird and cool drummer. You listen to some of those early Beatles singles and he did the strangest, strangest things -- like throwing in a fill in the middle of a bar, apropos of nothing, and *not* using any fills in the traditional end-of-bar and end-of-section places.

Posted by: Clive at October 18, 2004 3:58 PM

Ringo's the coolest of all time. There's the old line about him not be the best drummer, but perfect for the band. His innovations were right up there with the rest of the group. He's one of the reasons I started playing drums.

http://gordfynes.com/?s=drumming

He's also my four year old's favourite Beatle thanks to the Yellow Submarine DVD.

Posted by: gord at October 19, 2004 7:48 PM

Yes way!

Posted by: Clive at October 19, 2004 7:51 PM

RUSH RULES....

Posted by: Uncle Rob at October 19, 2004 8:19 PM

Robot, please do not mock GRACE UNDER PRESSURE. You can mock HOLD YOUR FIRE and PRESTO all you want, though.

Posted by: fray at October 20, 2004 12:40 PM

I'm a cheap Rush date, actually. I'll listen to anything, even the entire 8 minutes and 37 seconds of "By-Tor and the Snowdog".

Posted by: Clive at October 22, 2004 2:19 AM

What about the live version of "Working Man" from All the World's A Stage, recorded, I believe, at Massey Hall? The first of Mr. Peart's many documented solos.

When's someone gonna start an Iron Maiden thread?

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