Features:
- Expressive: Quick and responsive action. Every pixel sounds just a little different.
- 6 Drum Kits: Cajón, Xylophone, Jazz, IDM, Drum&Bass 1 + 2.
- Distortion: Increase gain to add a tube-like distortion that can dramatically change the sound.
- Delay Module: With tweakable time, feedback and mix settings.
- Customizable: Designed for both right-handed and left-handed drummers."
"Designed by a musician for musicians Drums by Asrodot brings a novel twist to drumming on the iPad.
Ask a drummer or a percussionist what a wooden coffee table sounds like. He or she will reply that every inch of the table sounds differently. Some parts of the table will sound somewhat like a bass drum. Other parts of the table will sound more like a rimshot. Parts in-between will sound like a mixture of both.
A drummer or a percussionist placed behind a wooden coffee table will soon discover many different sounds the table has to offer and use it to create stunning rhythms. Much to the joy of the drummer/percussionist, and possibly to the annoyance of the other people sitting at the table. The table metaphor has been used in the creation of Drums by Asrodot. Using the real estate of the iPad screen it has been made sure that every pixel sounds just a little bit different, which makes drumming on the iPad come to life. Want to create drumrolls with subtle accents every third note? Now you can.
This does not mean that Drums by Asrodot sounds like a coffee-table. The app comes loaded with six drum kits tailored for various styles of music.
Features:
- Expressive: Quick and responsive action. Every pixel sounds just a little different.
Is the first? Some details follow. According to the FAQ you can load your samples:
"In addition to the pre-loaded content, you can download more content from our online Library, create your own content with the included software, or share and discover user-generated content on our community forum."
"The BeatBuddy uses standard General MIDI files for the beats and either 16 or 24 bit WAV files for the drum sets and footswitch accent hits."
Not seeing any sound mangling on this one, but there appears to be some extensive pattern editing. Filing this one in the New Tools channel rather than New Synths.
Details:
"BeatBuddy was invented out of frustration at not being able to find a drum machine that enabled hands-free live control of a beat. Other drum machines are either complicated table-top devices that are difficult, if not impossible, to control while jamming, or are poorly made afterthoughts in loopers that grant no control of a single repetitive beat loop — no fills, no rhythm changes, no accent hits, no tap tempo, no pause/unpause feature, and of course no computer interface.
With detailed input from the musician community, the BeatBuddy was designed to be the perfect solution to this frustration: The power of a drum machine with the simplicity of a pedal."
"For more info: myBeatBuddy.com
BeatBuddy is the first drum machine in a guitar pedal format that enables full hands-free, creative control of the beat. Musicians can effortlessly insert fills, transition from verse to chorus, add accent hits, throw in drum breaks, and more, to create an unprecedented live drummer effect.
BeatBuddy also features a first-of-its-kind visual display of the beat on its LCD screen, which makes it easy to improve your rhythm and learn new time signatures.
Included are ten hyper-realistic drum sets that can play the BeatBuddy's 200 songs in a wide variety of genres -- and more content is available for download from the BeatBuddy Online Library, or you can create your own songs and drum sets with the included PC/Mac software, or discover user-generated content on the BeatBuddy Community Forum.
Other features include hands-free song navigation and tap tempo control (with the footswitch attachment), MIDI sync for integration with MIDI-based devices, a headphone jack, SD card slot, mini USB connection, full stereo sound and more."
And the NAMM press release:
"After the most successful crowd-funding campaign in the history of the musical instrument business and being back-ordered for months, BeatBuddy is now available to the retail market for the first time at NAMM (Hall E, Booth 1589).
BeatBuddy, the first drum machine with the hands-free functionality of a guitar pedal, has been hailed by Music Trades Magazine as changing the nature of the industry. It empowers musicians with hands-free control of the beat to create an unprecedented live-drummer accompaniment. It improves musical rhythm skills, increases enjoyment during practice, inspires songwriting, and serves as a substitute for a drummer or percussionist when one is not available or the venue can't accommodate a full drum set.
For more information on the BeatBuddy, please visit: http://myBeatBuddy.com
If you would like to see the BeatBuddy in person, please come by Hall E, Booth 1589. I am happy to make myself available for interview appointments. There are many fascinating angles and backstories that will make an exciting, intriguing article."
Left: Manfred Fricke (via Amazona.de) back in the day with his first creations, the MFB-501 drum machine (right), and MFB-601 digital sequencer (left).
2nd image is Manfred Fricke with the MFB SYNTH II at SUPERBOOTH (unknown source).
We lost another legend in the synth world. Sad news in via STROMKULT:
"'On June, 17th around 11am Manfred Fricke from Berlin alias MFB sadly passed away after having had a hard time with cancer for a while already. He left his wife Gloria and his son Jean-Marcel behind, we are all very sad having lost this partner, friend and father.'
HerrSchneider
Manfred Fricke was one of Berlins pioneers of analog synth and drum machine makers. He has been the weapon of choice for many (not only) starting musicians. Let’s be honest, who didn’t have one of his creations early in his or hers journey into electronic musical instruments – or at least thought about getting one – and why shouldn’t you? Manfred Fricke's machines always brought something unique to the table, they were mostly analog, affordable, in small plastic housings and just did the job. Manfred always focused on keeping his products affordable for his clients and the instruments quite often made their way to professional use later on, and the musicians often kept their first units as something almost holy, because it were these machines that paved the way into analog electronic music making.
But it would be too short-sighted to associate MFB only with budget entry-level products. Especially the drum machines Tanzbär and Tanzbär II, or the great Dominion 1 show that Manfred Fricke also built machines that met higher demands. The Tanzbär, in particular, is considered by many to be their favorite drum machine of the last few years, especially in terms of its amazing sound.
We hope that MFB will continue to exist and that it will continue to make it easier for many generations of musicians to enter the world of electronic sound production.
We wish Manfred Fricke's son Jean-Marcel continued success for the future of MFB and extend our condolences to him and his family. And lets hope that Manfred will finally meet up with all the other good guys on the other side.
MFB's Manfred Fricke's first procuct, the Fricke MFB-501 drum machine.
Description via this video:
"This little analog beatbox was developed in 1980 1979 by Manfred Fricke. It was offered at 380 DM. As a low-cost model on the market for analog rhythm generators the small black and white "Switch Box" quickly found a lot of friends, because its configuration could be compared to its expensive far east competitors: 64 patterns and as many fill-ins switchable via micro switches, speed control via potentiometer, 10 analog percussion instruments (activated by means of micro switches), combined mono/stereo outputs (jack), In & Out (5 Vss) and trigger footswitch inputs (jack) for start and fill-in
(retail price for the switch at 16 DM). An external wall power supply provides 12 volts.
Approx. 5000 units of the MFB-501 had been sold. Not so bad for a one-man company. So this drum machine is one of the top-selling devices in the history of the Berlin engineer offices M. Fricke . If you're lucky, this iconic device can still be found on the relevant internet sales platforms.
Today, maintenance of this tiny noise machine is still easily feasible, because Fricke employed only commercially available components. Therefore, 'presumedly dead 501's' can be reanimated without major problems."
MFB 601 Vintage Digital Sequencer, Teardown, Repair and partial analysis
Published on Feb 2, 2015 FPV Electronics
Note this video is FPV Electronics of course, and not Manfred Fricke.
"This device is exclusively built from 7400 and 4000 series basic logic ICs. Making it must have been so much more difficult than just programming a generic µController as we would do today."
1976: MFB was founded by engineer Manfred Fricke. So far there were more than some hundred products constructed and distributed. The first developments and products were primarly video games for industrial playmachines.
1979: A lowcost drummachine was introduced in 1979. (98 DM for the self construction kit). The legendary drumcomputer MFB-501 was finished and sold. Although it was not the most prominent drumcomputer of that time it surely was one of the best selling drum units in Germany. Some shops sold ten times more MFB-501s than Roland TR-808s. More products for the musician followed, such as the Digital-Sequencer MFB-601 and the digital drum machine MFB-512. All of these featured rich products were offered at exceptional low prices.
1984: The E-Drum module series 1000 and 2000 followed with corresponding pads.
1986: A new construction period started in 1986 with product launches of the MIDI-CV converter MFB-201 and the MIDI drummer MFB-SYNTH was finished in 1997, although its development dates back to the eighties. The machine never went into production since 2001, the year of the company´s 25th anniversary because of decreased interest in analogue synthesizer technology especially in the sales channels.
From 1986 Manfred Fricke specialized in products for video applications. Alone 20 different framegrabbers for the Apple II, C-64 und IBM compatible PCs were constructed. A very high percentage of these framegrabbers were and are still in use for special industrial purposes. Custom development is still done here, so these specialized tools are not available for other customers.
1994: MFB introduced the world´s first videomixer below 1.000 DM, the MFB-901. Its successor MFB-902 was available in 1995. Another important development in the video section was the model MFB-912, a digital video memory. This 1998 product was highly acclaimed by the press.
1999: The successor MFB-915 added sound and higher picture resolution. It´s available since October 1999. Another successor is the model MFB-920 with an integrated harddrive offering better options for nonlinear cutting and post processing of the recorded material.
2001: During this year, Manfred Fricke also developed another new MIDI drum-module. MFB-KULT, includes most of the famous sounds of the older machines. Both MFB-SYNTH and MFB-KULT are availabale since December 2001. Because of constant requests for the digital sequencer MFB-601 a successor MFB-602. was introduced in May 2002.
2002: Since August 2002 there´s also a little brother of the MFB-SYNTH, the MFB-SYNTH LITE
"In music box you’ve seen gears, steel comb and cylinder with pins. Gecho doesn’t try to hide its printed circuit board and some electronic elements. You can touch them – actually, you are encouraged to touch them, nothing will break!
While you can’t see electrons moving in copper traces, there are twenty-nine colourful lights to show what is going on inside... and because interaction is embedded deeply in spirit of today’s technology, even our music box must not stay inert. It can hear your voice, pick frequencies off your musical instruments, remember and play them back to you. It has four sensors to measure distance of your fingers hundred times per second.
It senses magnetic fields and infra-red light, expanding your senses... and knows how to translate these invisible forces to something you can hear.
But most importantly, even with the very basic program, Gecho creates unique ambience for your ears.
"Gecho is a polyphonic, pocket synthesizer with interactive controls
How it works: TL; DR
Instead of knobs, it has touch-less sensors that react to your fingers. It also has very sensitive microphones that hear your singing, whistling or tapping. The collected signal is fed through a group of variable-resonant filters, forming chord-progressions. At the same time, environmental noise peaks disturb the filters settings, creating complexity of sounds.
Full story
I tried to make a music box using the current technology, replacing steel comb, pinned cylinder, cogwheels and springs with crystal oscillators and power cells... but I ended up with something more complex. It can be a music box - with a click of the button, it starts playing melodies straight away. But it can also be so much more...
YouTube via FailedMuso. "Another in my series of basic (and I do mean basic !) demos of some of my favourite bits of gear. Here is the Mattel Synsonics, a piece of gear I lusted over as a young boy, thinking it would be my ticket to super mega stardom as the most supreme drummer of all time. Sadly, my pocket money couldn't stretch to it, and my parents figured that I'd be far better served by a Subbuteo set, as a career in table football was much better :-s
I eventually found one of these in mint condition on eBay and promptly snapped it up. Sadly, after almost 30 years of waiting, I was slightly underwhelmed, but I'm sure it would've blown my mind back in the day.
YouTube Uploaded by KorgUSAVideos on Dec 13, 2011 Bass Seq at 3:16. Be sure to see the full video for different presets.
"Now this is different! From our friends at Korg Inc. (Japan) comes this killer video featuring AskA from TAPJAMCREW. Using the Wavedrum Mini's Sensor Clip, he is really taking Tap Dance to a whole new level. This versatile and portable percussion instrument from Korg mixes elements of their current Wavedrum sound technology with a pattern/phrase recorder, a built-in speaker, battery power, a leg strap, and a way-cool sensor clip that transform anything from your sneaker to a table into a second sound source. Wow! http://www.korg.com/wavedrummini"
Update:
Korg Wavedrum Mini: Tap Dancing Video (Vol. 2)
Uploaded by KorgUSAVideos on Dec 15, 2011
"Prepare to be floored (pun intended!) In this second installment, AskA from TAPJAMCREW is joined by drummer Ryo Kanda as they show off some more examples of "Tap meets Technology" by using Wavedrum Mini's unique sensor clip to transform his dance platform into a musical instrument. What will you connect it to? http://www.korg.com/wavedrummini"
"Designed by a musician for musicians Drums by Asrodot brings a novel twist to drumming on the iPad. 
A drummer or a percussionist placed behind a wooden coffee table will soon discover many different sounds the table has to offer and use it to create stunning rhythms. Much to the joy of the drummer/percussionist, and possibly to the annoyance of the other people sitting at the table. The table metaphor has been used in the creation of Drums by Asrodot. Using the real estate of the iPad screen it has been made sure that every pixel sounds just a little bit different, which makes drumming on the iPad come to life. Want to create drumrolls with subtle accents every third note? Now you can.
This does not mean that Drums by Asrodot sounds like a coffee-table. The app comes loaded with six drum kits tailored for various styles of music. 
