Motus Spatial Wireless Instrument Turns Gestures Into Sound

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TZM Creative Lab has launched a crowdfunding project to fund the production of the Motus – an inexpensive ‘spatial wireless instrument’ that translates gestures into sound.

There’s a long history of gestural controllers in electronic music, notably the Buchla Lightning. The Motus is designed around current electronic technologies, though, which allows it to be very affordable – $79 or $49 for a DIY model.

motus-tracks

The Motus includes a variety of sensors, as shown above, and is compatible with MIDI, OSC, Max for Live / Max and ReWire.

There are three Motus models:

  • Motus Pro ($149) – uses a dedicated receiver, allowing up to 30 meters working range and up to 12 devices simultaneously; More precision and accuracy; High data rate – no perceivable latency
  • Motus Classic (starts at $79) – uses Bluetooth 4 LE Smart connectivity, no receiver is needed.
  • Motus Hacker ($49) – Build your own Motus device, hack it and add external sensors. Print your own Motus body, solder the PCB, take advantage of Arduino community and thousands of open source libraries.

Here is the official intro video:

Here’s a video demoing a dance performance use case:

The next video demonstrates a live visual control use case:

The last video demonstrates using the Motus as a gestural music controller:

Details on the Motus can be found at the project page.

17 thoughts on “Motus Spatial Wireless Instrument Turns Gestures Into Sound

  1. They also wrote that it sounds like 80’s synthesizers from David Hasselhoff’s songs. I guess the idea is that device can control any generated sound.
    It looks interesting as a motion controller and cheaper than many midi keyboards.

  2. Now days if you play in a studio you are a loser.
    You have ti be either in a cave, on a crop field, at the beach or in a forest….

  3. This actually looks great, the idea of a dancer being able to control, sound and light at the same time, so easily is wonderful, my question is can you use multiple devices at the same time?

  4. Tried Buying The Double Pro and will not let me buy it, fails to take me to page to pay for it.
    No Contact or Email to notify. Shame was looking to maybe invest also

  5. Tried to buy a few of these, and it would not take me to a page to pay for them. I tried 3 times over a 2 week period. Very cool concept, would like to invest but no Email or Contact Us on site. I think the shopping cart link is in flash and don’t work right. Shame. Still interested but.Het Synthhead if you have a contact with company pass them my info.

  6. No news and no product arrived … I tried to contact them by facebook and mail … no response … I’m waiting my device ! It smell like scam …

  7. SCAM !
    I paid for this device in october 2015. Until now, I received two emails telling me it will be delivered soon, but nothing arrived in my mailbox.
    And they don’t answer the emails.
    I asked for a refund. I’ll see what happen…

  8. DO NOT BUY OR INVEST ON THIS.
    Like the previous comments by michael and Calagan, I too, pre-ordered one in Dec 2015 and so far nothing, no replies, no product, NADA!

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