DrumPants
Old-fashioned one-man bands involve strapping instruments - including a huge bass drum - to your body, but now a slimline gadget claims to turn any item of clothing
into a comfortable-to-wear musical instrument.
DrumPants let wearers play music anywhere using wearable sensors that transform a pair of jeans into a drum kit or a shirt into a guitar.
The easily concealed sensor sticks are attached to a control box that lets a person choose from more than 100 sounds - including instruments such as the piano.
Users can also add their own noises, such as the meow of a cat as they are playing, too.DrumPants wearers have the option of listening to their musical endeavours using headphones or if they are more of a performer, they can broadcast their sounds using an external speaker that can be clipped onto their clothes.
Two wearable strips, which are offered in the San Francisco-based firm's basic DrumPants kit, contain six sensors, but extra strips can be added.The sensor sticks, which are very thin and flexible and respond to touch, can be attached to any item of clothing with 'ultra-thin Velcro stickies'.
'Just stick them inside your clothes and easily swap the drum pad strips between outfits,' the company said.The notes and noises produced by DrumPants can be sent to any app that supports MIDI or OSC and the device can also be connected to a computer via USB.A looping pedal can be added to the system and controlled by tapping a shoe, for example, to build up a layer of sounds and the wearable sensors can even be used to control a slideshow or other equipment such as a smartphone.
Tyler Freeman, the Californian co-founder and inventor of DrumPants came up with the product as a prank but has now been working on it for six years and decided to commercialise it, while studying at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
More on the topic you can find here.
DrumPants let wearers play music anywhere using wearable sensors that transform a pair of jeans into a drum kit or a shirt into a guitar.
The easily concealed sensor sticks are attached to a control box that lets a person choose from more than 100 sounds - including instruments such as the piano.
Users can also add their own noises, such as the meow of a cat as they are playing, too.DrumPants wearers have the option of listening to their musical endeavours using headphones or if they are more of a performer, they can broadcast their sounds using an external speaker that can be clipped onto their clothes.
Two wearable strips, which are offered in the San Francisco-based firm's basic DrumPants kit, contain six sensors, but extra strips can be added.The sensor sticks, which are very thin and flexible and respond to touch, can be attached to any item of clothing with 'ultra-thin Velcro stickies'.
'Just stick them inside your clothes and easily swap the drum pad strips between outfits,' the company said.The notes and noises produced by DrumPants can be sent to any app that supports MIDI or OSC and the device can also be connected to a computer via USB.A looping pedal can be added to the system and controlled by tapping a shoe, for example, to build up a layer of sounds and the wearable sensors can even be used to control a slideshow or other equipment such as a smartphone.
Tyler Freeman, the Californian co-founder and inventor of DrumPants came up with the product as a prank but has now been working on it for six years and decided to commercialise it, while studying at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
More on the topic you can find here.
