What musical possibilities can be applied to an object with the simple shape of a cube?
We’ve taken this simple simple idea with the intention of pushing it to it’s limits. Doki Doki is a Japanese ideophonic word meaning excitement, or heart beat. It is also the name of our first musical controller – a unique rhythm instrument combining properties of traditional hand drums and modern technology.
Doki Doki is a highly tactile wooden digital hand-drum with five active surfaces and a built-in accelerometer. It offers a very open and experimental way of producing and performing music by taking advantage of extending our musical senses to tactility and motion through a strong physical connection to the instrument.
Why should musical controllers limited to plastic knobs, small finger pads and standard MIDI-keyboards? We want to go beyond these standards and aim for a tactile and interesting musical interface using materials we love to touch and use.
Flexibility and freedom are two important keywords in this project. We want to provide a platform living up to these keywords, and let it’s users explore the possibilities. Both hardware and software are based on open source technology and philosophy. Musicians will be able to either use and tinker with the free software, or use it as a MIDI controller device.
We are manufacturing all pieces ourselves – soldering the PCB, wood crafts, aluminum cutting – in our workshops in Sweden. The Doki Doki will not be a mass-produced tool – it will be a handmade piece of art, made true care intended for creativity and exploration.
Usage and Functionality
TAP
The main function of the Doki Doki is similar to a hand drum. All five wooden sides of the Doki Doki react to tapping, triggering sounds, loops and synthesizers etc. You have full control of what should be triggered, and then how to move the piece around to apply effects to the sound.
SHAKE
Shake the Doki Doki to intuitively trigger delay effects and echoes. Hear your sounds virtually bounce inside the cube!
ROTATE
Rotate 360° to modify filters and effects of your choice. Presets are pitch bend and cutoff effects. It recognizes the threedimentional location of each side, as well as the speed and type of motion they are moved in.
Prototyping and beta-testing
The Doki Doki project envision Ideofon’s agenda of collaboration over widely range of interests with the common nominator of creative curiosity. Among our beta testers are DJs, classically trained musicians, drummers, physical rehabilitation experts, interaction designers, computer geeks, artists, children, designers… The next step in our development is gathering feedback from those groups in order to refine our softwares and functions. As it is being tested in studio environments for production as well as live performances, we will be posting videos and demonstrations.
