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The xylosynth, also known as a "xylophonic synthesizer", is an instrument created by Will Wernick in 1986, originally specifically designed for the English pop band, the Drum Theatre. [1]
Drum Theatre were a British pop group, active in the mid-1980s. The band released four singles and one album, after which they disbanded.
In the early 1990s, there was a demand of artists wanting to play on acoustic mallets, Gerry McCavana, who was originally a Metrology Engineer, quit his job to spend time with Will Wernick. [1] Together, they began to develop and advance the software and electronics for the xylosynth. [1] It is now used in many different styles of music and percussions, worldwide, such as jazz and contemporary. [1]
Metrology is the science of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in France, when a length standard taken from a natural source was proposed. This led to the creation of the decimal-based metric system in 1795, establishing a set of standards for other types of measurements. Several other countries adopted the metric system between 1795 and 1875; to ensure conformity between the countries, the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) was established by the Metre Convention. This has evolved into the International System of Units (SI) as a result of a resolution at the 11th Conference Generale des Poids et Mesures (CGPM) in 1960.
The xylosynth is an electric percussion mallet instrument, similar to a xylophone. The keys are made out of either solid bubinga wood or birch wood resulting in a dynamic range from two to five octave sizes. [1] The xylosynth has a latency speed of 0.003 seconds or less. [2] The sound generated from the xylosynth is very clear and each note is easily heard. Even though it is not an acoustic instrument, the feel and sound of the instrument would lead one to believe that it could be. [2] The xylosynth can by complemented by a variety of accessories such as a single or double foot pedals. [2]
A percussion mallet or beater is an object used to strike or beat a percussion instrument in order to produce its sound.
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African and Asian instruments, diatonic in many western children's instruments, or chromatic for orchestral use.
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus Betula, in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus Betula contains 30 to 60 known taxa of which 11 are on the IUCN 2011 Red List of Threatened Species. They are a typically rather short-lived pioneer species widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in northern areas of temperate climates and in boreal climates.
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, following the human voice.
The marimba is a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with yarn or rubber mallets to produce musical tones. Resonators or pipes suspended underneath the bars amplify their sound. The bars of a chromatic marimba are arranged like the keys of a piano, with the groups of two and three accidentals raised vertically, overlapping the natural bars to aid the performer both visually and physically. This instrument is a type of idiophone, but with a more resonant and lower-pitched tessitura than the xylophone. A person who plays the marimba is called a marimbist or a marimba player.
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, thus making it a metallophone. The glockenspiel, moreover, is usually smaller and higher in pitch.
Throughout history, various methods of musical instrument classification have been used. The most commonly used system divides instruments into string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments; however, other schemes have been devised.
A mallet percussion instrument is a melodic percussion instrument played in a particular fashion, with mallets. Mallet percussion includes:
In a marching band or a drum and bugle corps, the front ensemble or pit is the stationary percussion ensemble. This ensemble is typically placed in front of the football field, though some groups will work the front ensemble into a tight pod onto the marching field. Some high school marching bands opt not to march any percussion instruments, but instead have a "full" front ensemble.
The Radiodrum or radio-baton is a musical instrument played in three-dimensional space using two mallets. It was developed at Bell Labs in the 1980s, originally to be a three-dimensional computer mouse. Currently it is used as a musical instrument similar to a MIDI controller in the sense that it has no inherent sound or effect, but rather produces control signals that can be used to control sound-production As such, it can be thought of as a general telepresence input device. The radiodrum works in a similar way to the theremin, which uses magnetic capacitance to locate the position of the drumsticks. The two mallets act as antennas transmitting on slightly different frequencies and the drum surface acts as a set of antennas. The combination of the antenna signals is used to derive X, Y and Z.
Stagg music is a Belgian musical instrument company headquartered in Brussels, currently a subsidiary of EMD Music. The company produce a wide range of musical instruments, which includes string instruments, percussion instruments, tuned metal, free reed and brass instruments as well as effects units and other accessories.
A bell tree, also known as Pakistan tree bells or Chinese bell tree, is a percussion instrument, consisting of vertically nested inverted metal bowls. The bowls, placed on a vertical rod, are arranged roughly in order of pitch. The number of bowls can vary between approximately 14 and 28. An effective glissando is produced by sliding a triangle beater, a glockenspiel mallet, or a xylophone mallet down the length of the tree. The bells are usually pitched to microtonal intervals and do not represent any formal scale. When a glissando is played, the inexactness of the order of the bowls' pitch is unnoticeable, merely creating a fuller sound.
The ranat ek is a Thai musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of 21 wooden bars suspended by cords over a boat-shaped trough resonator and struck by two mallets. It is used as a leading instrument in the piphat ensemble.
The Roneat Ek or Roneat Aek is a xylophone used in the Khmer classical music of Cambodia. It is built in the shape of a curved, rectangular shaped boat. It has twenty-one thick bamboo or hard wood bars that are suspended from strings attached to the two walls. They are cut into pieces of the same width, but of different lengths and thickness. Originally these instruments were highly decorated with inlay and carvings on the sides of the sound box. Now they are simpler. The Roneat is played in the Pinpeat ensemble. In that ensemble, sits on the right of the Roneat Thung, a lower-pitched xylophone. The roneat ek is the analogous equivalent to the Thai xylophone called ranat ek, and the Burmese bamboo xylophone called "pattala".
A drumstick is a type of percussion mallet used particularly for playing snare drum, drum kit and some other percussion instruments, and particularly for playing unpitched percussion.
Clair Omar Musser (1901–1998) was a marimba virtuoso, a conductor and promoter of marimba orchestras, a composer, a teacher, a designer of keyboard percussion instruments, an inventor, and an engineer for Hughes Aircraft.
A keyboard percussion instrument, shortened as 'Keyperc', is a chromatic melodic percussion instrument arranged in a similar pattern to a piano keyboard and played with hands or percussion mallets. Although, KeyPerc instruments for children may be diatonic or pentatonic.
There are several overlapping schemes for the classification of percussion instruments.
Roneat is the generic Khmer word for referring to several types of xylophones used in traditional Cambodian music; the pinpeat and mohaori.
The implementation of sound technology by International Drum Corps is a phenomenon in the twenty-first century marching arts. Since 2004, many corps have used electronics to amplify, alter, and add to the sound of their ensembles.