Aerodrums is a set of virtual drum controllers that allows a

drummer A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western music ensemble, bands that play Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, or Contemporary R&B, R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeepi ...

to play without requiring a physical

drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...

. It has the advantage that it can be used in quiet settings such as in a family home or close to neighbours, as no residual noise is produced.

Technology

Aerodrums operate via

motion capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mocap or mo-cap, for short) is the process of recording high-resolution motion (physics), movement of objects or people into a computer system. It is used in Military science, military, entertainment, sports ...

technology; a

high speed camera A high-speed camera is a device capable of capturing moving images with exposures of less than second or frame rates in excess of 250 frames per second. It is used for recording fast-moving objects as photographic images onto a storage medium. ...

captures reflections off the kit's sticks and foot pads and converts them into digital signals that can trigger the relevant drum

sample Sample or samples may refer to: * Sample (graphics), an intersection of a color channel and a pixel * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of something * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample ...

. The system requires a

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eye camera and the software runs on Windows and MacOS. The whole kit can be stored in a backpack, making it transportable. Because of the technology used, the equipment cannot be used outdoors in daylight, and works best in a dark room. Not all the sounds of a real drum can be played, because there are only samples. However, the controls are

velocity sensitive Keyboard expression is the ability of a keyboard musical instrument to change tone or other qualities of the sound in response to velocity, pressure or other variations in how the performer depresses the keys of the musical keyboard. Expression ...

, so there is some correct response to how hard the player hits a virtual drum.

History

The controllers were created by video game developer Richard Lee and computer scientist Yann Morvan, who met while working on their

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degrees at

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. Lee has played drums since the age of nine. Morvan has said they both "didn't want Aerodrums to be a fad" and "wanted it to be a proper musical instrument". Aerodrums were first demonstrated at the

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in 2014. A second appearance at the winter 2016

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, featured a demonstration of being able to "see" a drumkit with Aerodrums via a

virtual reality headset A virtual reality headset (or VR headset) is a Head-mounted display, head-mounted device that uses 3D near-eye displays and positional tracking to provide a virtual reality environment for the user. VR headsets are widely used with Virtual reali ...

. Shortly afterwards, Lee and Morvan appeared on the British television show ''

Dragon's Den ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it i ...

'', asking for a £75,000 investment in exchange for five percent of equity. Two investors teamed up to offer the pair the requested money, but with a forty-percent stake in the business, which they turned down. Morvan later said that the Dragons did not understand their business or the perceived market share, though he emphasised he was glad to have appeared on the show.

Professional users

A. R. Rahman Allah Rakha Rahman (; born A. S. Dileep Kumar; 6 January 1967), also known by the initialism ARR, is an Indian music composer, record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and philanthropist known for his works in Indian cinem ...

used Aerodrums on an American tour.

References

{{reflist

External links

* https://aerodrums.com – official website MIDI controllers