For those unaware, Sunhouse launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for their product Sensory Percussion — a new and innovative trigger system that works with any drum.
Utilizing the latest and greatest advances in signal tech, Sunhouse’s Sensory Percussion triggers expand the sonic realm of music-making.
How Does Sensory Percussion Differ?
Sensory Percussion isn’t your typical trigger system — your entire drum head contains different sections with different sounds. Traditional drum triggers are only an on-off switch.
Drum triggers are hardware components that allow you to trigger sounds and samples as you play your drums.
Sunhouse offers their line of mesh drums, but if you want to use your own, you can get the clip on triggers.
What Can SP Do?
The trigger latches onto your rim and, incredibly, can detect where and how you hit the drum — allowing you to map different sections of the drum to any desired sound.
No matter if you wish to use synthesizer sounds or drum samples, you can do it with ease (rim hits and cross sticks even work).
The process of setting up Sensory Percussion first requires training the sensor. With the use of a computer (you’ll need one), the included software will walk you through the process of both calibrating the drum and choosing samples.
Once calibrated, you can add samples to any part of the drum’s surface: the rim, the cross stick, anywhere on the head, etc.
Sensory Percussion allows blending between regions, which aids in the performance sounding natural. This feature eliminates the issue of common e-drums and sample pads.
“Sensory Percussion is the freshest, most creative technology to hit electronic drumming in the last decade. With one drum I can now do what I can do with an entire kit.”
Trevor Lawrence Jr. — Grammy-winning producer and drummer for Dr. Dre, Herbie Hancock, and Stevie Wonder
Sunhouse also gives you the ability to apply effects to different sections of the drum. This feature eliminates knobs, buttons, pads, and mouse clicks — you’re playing drums, not programming music here.
Effects can also be applied globally to the entire kit.
Smart Cross-Talk Cancellation effectively stops cross-talk due to ambient noise. This innovation is excellent because cross-talk can be a big issue for triggers and electronic drums in general.
How Does SP Work?
Sensory Percussion utilizes an aggregate of sensors to capture all the vibrations of your drum — one sensor works for the head, and one sensor works for the rim/shell.
SP isolates rather well, so it still functions perfectly in loud stage environments. Their proprietary algorithms can tell how and where you hit your drums.
The trigger system also uses XLR cables, so, likely, you won’t need to pick up separate cables to get started.
The software supports a maximum of four sensors at a time.
My Overall Thoughts
Sensory Percussion by Sunhouse is an appealing idea. I, myself haven’t used the trigger system, but have seen enough to know that it works well (unless all the videos I’ve seen are faked, but I doubt it).
SP is a fresh concept, but I can’t see myself having a particular use for it.
Don’t solely take my opinion though — the Kickstarter was a resounding success breaking the funding goal by more than $14,000. There are plenty of drummers and musicians interested in creating music in a new way.
For more information about Sensory Percussion, be sure to hit up their website and grab your sensor kit at Amazon.
Have a look at this video to see Sunhouse Sensory Percussion in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT5Vt1iJ9P0
“(…)
Surrounded by his own unique android of drums and electronics, Antoine Pierre is widening his already broad musical spectrum quite a bit with VAAGUE. For this brand new solo project, the Brussels based drummer and producer created a collection of samples to fuse organically — and manually! — with his own drum grooves.
From pulsating synths over otherworldly vocal snippets to dark and dreamy droplets of sound: each electronic element is blending in perfectly with Antoine’s live played beats. Sometimes hypnotically captivating, then again thriving on downtempo dub vibes, but always inventive and surprisingly layered: this first collection of tracks presents itself as the colourful gateway into a new and exciting musical universe, which is clearly far from finished.
Thanks to a residency at the Botanique this summer, you will also discover an original scenography, created for the occasion, which bewitches and thickens the electrifying musical universe of VAAGUE.
Antoine Pierre finds his musical inspiration from artists such as Floating Points, Son Lux, Deantoni Parks, Ian Chang, Flying Lotus and Moderat.
He uses Sensory Percussion technology from SunHouse (NYC).
(…)”
Source: https://www.jazzinbelgium.com/event/id=59829