Richie’s Electric Playground

Hand-held squeezable, twistable, shakeable devices form part of Richard Allen’s Richie’s Electric Playground – a mobile, solar-powered, interactive music workshop housed in an old fire engine, and designed to encourage group musical play at public events. 
 


Players begin by stepping onto a floor mat, where inbuilt sensor pads trigger off rhythmic layers to get things started. 
 


Robo-Mic Thing
The Robo-Mic Thing is a software-designed vocoder within a Nord Modular Synthesizer. If that doesn’t mean much to you then just get excited by the idea of popping robot-like effects onto your voice as you sing, shout, or cry into the microphone, giving the whole playground a healthy dose of electro-pop-ness. 


Squeezy-Wow Thing
Squeezing the Squeezy Wow Thing gives out a driving resonant filter drone that sounds a lot like a didgeridoo. Using a pressure-sensitive resistor as a MIDI controller means that the harder you squeeze the device, the harsher and louder the sound produced – kind of like a grumpy didgeridoo with blocked sinuses.
 


Air-Whammy Thing
The Air-Whammy Thing is a fluid, intuitive, and expressive device, as well as being the most fancy gadget in the Playground. Developed by Richard Allen and Nathan Fraser, the device contains a 2-axis accelerometer (+- 2g) that drives an analogue filter and step sequencer on an old Roland SH101 analogue synthesizer (which has been adapted as a 2-axis MIDI controller).To play the Air-Whammy Thing simply wave it around vigorously. The more forceful you move it, the more extreme the ‘wooouu’ sound produced. 
 


Twisty-Wee Thing
Hardened oldschool video gamers will recognise the mutated Atari 2600 paddle controller at the heart of the melodic Twisty-Wee Thing. Rotating the joystick dial slides the device’s pitch up and down along a pre-defined scale, slurring between frequencies. Or you could push the big red button and see what happens. The Twisty-Wee Thing is in the same key as the Squeezy-Wow Thing and the Robo-Mic Thing, and provides a foolproof handheld melodic instrument.

Richard Allen’s collection of handheld electronic instruments is a fantastic example of recent experimental musical instruments being built for groups of general players, punters like you and me, to step up and make a little musical mayhem.