Reactable
Not too many people are actually familiar with the technical definition of an instrument. Before you say that I’m wrong, just know that 80% of the people I’ve spoken to about the ‘Reactable’ think it’s some sort of Liberty Science Center exhibit, not a music instrument. The Reactable is a round translucent table, used in a darkened room, and appears as a backlit display. By placing blocks called tangibles on the table, and interfacing with the visual display via the tangibles or fingertips, a virtual modular synthesizer is operated, creating music or sound effects. The Reactable is an electronic musical instrument with a tabletop Tangible User Interface that has been developed within the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain by Sergi Jordà, Marcos Alonso, Martin Kaltenbrunner and Günter Geiger.
The Samchillian
This oddly named instrument is an electronic musical tool which takes Leon Gruenbaum’s “Samchillian” concept and defines a possible product design for it. The challenge for the production team was to make a product, which would be aesthetic, ergonomic and could be used on stage. Since this is a new and an unusual type of musical instrument a lot of thought went into defining an new iconic shape but one which still comunicates as a musical instrument. Like the Reactable, its a new type of musical instrument which uses the concept of keys representing relative notes, rather then fixed notes (as in a piano). an explanation of what that means is apparent in the film.