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OWOW’s series of digital instruments has you wave, rotate and air-drum tunes

The ubiquity of computers, smartphones, and tablets have all led to a distinctly digital personality when it comes to music creation. Instead of it being regulated to those who spend years mastering a particular instrument, devices have made it so that anyone with a tune in their head can express it with whatever instrument, sound effect, or voice they can find on the internet. Unfortunately, this has made current methods of music creation look more like coding and less like playing.

With their CRD and DVC series of digital instruments, the Omnipresent World of Wizkids (OWOW) is looking to reinject a bit of fun and actual playing to music creation. The series consists of five compact, plug-and-play instruments played with both touch and gesture controls: waving their hands lets users manipulate sounds with the Wob instrument, rotations of the Wiggle instrument will produce different versions of previously assigned effects while users can air drum above the Drums instrument to create percussion. The Pads instrument is a physical miniature drum pad while the Scan is the most experimental of the bunch; with it, users draw dots or lines beforehand that are interpreted as sounds as the Scan is passed over the design.

Both the CRD and DVC series are exactly alike in terms of components, but the former is constructed as an exposed circuit board while the latter is constructed within an aluminum frame for a more finished design all in an effort to offer backers a choice in pricing. All five instruments in the CRD series go for $272 while all five of the domino-like DVC series go for $550, with an estimated ship date of February 2016. OWOW is looking to raise $55,600 by July 9th, 2015.

Although OWOW’s series of digital instruments are intuitive and easy to pick up for those budding musicians out there itching to just make music, they  seem a bit too simplistic for those already established or for those truly looking for a tactile experience. Digital instruments like the Jambé and Keys might be up those users’ alleys, but the pocketable devices seem like a lot of fun..

 

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