<aside> 💡 The Sledgehammer Kablammer combines the beautiful fluidity of a cello’s strings and the volume-reactive, easy-to-hit pads of a drum kit into one electronic musical instrument, with enhancements that expand beyond the capabilities of either instrument alone to create new & familiar sounds in new & familiar ways.
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<aside> 📈 Creating this instrument from scratch was the greatest interdisciplinary challenge of my career:
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Check out this video for a live demonstration of the instrument, along with the full report I wrote for the course below.
<aside> 📘 Read my full report on the Sledgehammer Kablammer below!
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Rose Kitz
Group: Kyle Tomlinson and Ramona Xi
EMID ES95, Prof. Lehrman
12/19/23
The Sledgehammer Kablammer in the tabletop position
Rose playing the instrument in upright position
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Kyle’s frustrations with the physical limitations of the acoustic cello and drums he plays and desire to enhance those acoustic sounds with digital effects inspired this multi-faceted instrument. While imitating the cello and drums in physical form and beginning sounds, we aimed create an instrument that is fun and easy to learn with sonic possibilities beyond acoustic instruments, all in a travel-size form factor while playable by one person alone or a group in a variety of familiar instrument orientations. The simplicity and familiarity of the interface allow anyone to pickup the instrument quickly, while also the variety of sound and musical parameter options enable experienced string instrument or drum players like Kyle to experiment with new sounds without having to learn how to play a completely new instrument.
To meet these design goals, we determined the following features:
| Design Goal | Features |
|---|---|
| Familiar like existing instruments | - Adjust pitch on a sliding scale based on finger position (i.e. a cello string) |