Look, No Drums!

Another virtual drum offering is making its way into drummers’ hands after a successful Kickstarter campaign and Allan Leibowitz got an early test of the system.

- Allan Leibowitz

FREEDRUM WENT ONTO Kickstarter hoping to raise $150,000, but ended up taking four times as much – reaching $622,877 thanks to over 4,000 backers.

The pitch was simple: “a virtual drum kit that fits in your pocket”.

Those virtual drum kits are now shipping, and we were among the first to grab some hot off the production line.

What’s in the box

The stylish Scandinavian brown cardboard boxes contain a pair of sticks, a couple of sensors, a USB charging cable and some straps. You’ll also need the Sensorware app to configure the sensors and a drum app to provide the samples.

In reality, you’ll need two sets if you also want to be able to play a virtual bass drum. At this stage, there’s no virtual hi-hat controller – but more about that later.

The sensors are fairly compact, measuring 8 cm by 2 cm and about 7 mm thick, just large enough to straddle the stick. They’re pretty light, but obviously still heavy enough to affect the balance of the stick.

Getting ready

The first step is to charge the sensors, a process which takes around an hour first time around. When they’re charged, you need to fit the sensors to your sticks and your bass drum foot, turn them on and calibrate them by placing them on a flat surface. This is necessary because the sensors rely on their inbuilt gyroscope to determine their position and, therefore, which virtual drum or cymbal they are playing.

You also need to pair the sensors with your device. I used the system with a Macbook Pro, an iPhone and an iPad. One note of caution: check that your device supports the latest version of Bluetooth (LE); if it doesn't, it ain’t gonna work.