posted by Alex
February 2014

ototo1

I listen to music, I write about music but I do not play a single music instrument. As a teenager I had the ambition to play the drums in a nu-metal band but I never actually got hold of a drum-kit. Well, you know what they say..it is never too late.

For someone like me who gets easily bored and moves to a new, more interesting toy, Ototo seems like the right music gadget. Ototo is a synthesizer that has 12 onboard touch sensitive outputs which allow you to make an instrument from anything you want to.

Any conductive material such as an eggplant, your bowl with yoghurt and musli could be connected to Ototo and will produce a sound.

The options are really limitless as you decide what your music instrument should be. For the second part where you will be generating sounds, there are plenty of available options too. There are seven different sensors which again you decide how to combine and what use to make of. A light dependent sensor changes the sound depending on how much light it receives by simply covering it with your hand or expose it to a light source. Another sensor reacts depending on how how hard you press on it. You also have a joystick just like an analog stick on a gamepad - it enables the control of two sounds simultaneously. The rest of the sensors are a potentiometer, slider, touch strip and a breath sensor.

ototo4

Last but not least Ototo's developers are building it on an open source software and once they start shipping the code will be released publicly. I imagine a very inspired Ototo community the members of which will be sharing ideas and ways to further improve the firmware of this little magic box.

There are ten days left till the crowd-funding campaign is over. So far Ototo has generated around 35 000 pounds when the goal is 50 000. The project has to be fully funded otherwise it will not receive the money. If you like the idea behind Ototo you can pitch in with anything from 1 to 2000 pounds. A donation of 45 pounds will guarantee you one Ototo board.

guitar ototo

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