Haile the Drumming Robot

By John Farrier in Music, Science & Tech on Sep 4, 2009 at 8:10 am

Gil Weinberg and Scott Driscoll of Georgia Tech developed a robot that can improvise rhythms as it hears music:

Haile is a robotic percussionist that can listen to live players, analyze their music in real-time, and use the product of this analysis to play back in an improvisational manner. It is designed to combine the benefits of computational power and algorithmic music with the richness, visual interactivity, and expression of acoustic playing. We believe that when collaborating with live players, Haile can facilitate a musical experience that is not possible by any other means, inspiring players to interact with it in novel expressive manners, which leads to novel musical outcome.

Link via The Presurfer

Tags: drummer, Georgia Tech, Gil Weinberg, Haile, robotics, Scott Driscoll

Neat stuff from the NeatoShop:

felixthecat
Sep 4th, 2009 at 8:11 am
They made it to look like an Alien? Good work there!
Edward
Sep 4th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Rather than issuing a typical, semi-trolling negative comment, I would like to start a survey.

How many of you would say that this device accomplished its goal of assisting in the creation of music?

I would say that it did not.
felixthecat
Sep 4th, 2009 at 9:12 am
It may not have assisted in the creation of music, but it may be a piece in the puzzle of creating more functional robots. Imagine robots creating and playing music, rather than an animatron bleating out an old Stevie Nicks tune.
Anonymouse
Sep 4th, 2009 at 9:16 am
This robot’s drumming shares a lot of similarities with my attention whore friends.

Intelligent design at work?..
LisaL
Sep 4th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Pretty cool. Very interesting that it can change up it’s own beat to match the other players.
timmay
Sep 4th, 2009 at 9:54 am
photoshopped!
otterly
Sep 4th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Device did not aid in the creation of music. Human counterpart simply compensated for the devices playing in an effort to appear as if they were “Jamming”.. In essence the device failed to put its own stank on the beat.
Edward
Sep 4th, 2009 at 11:08 am
otterly FTW.
John Purchase
Sep 4th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Furby with a drum?
Clever Hans as robot?
Kalel
Sep 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I love these offbeat posts!
linty
Sep 4th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
hippies have been replaced! where will the go now?!
gtstiggy
Sep 4th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I have seen this robot play live. The did a similar project with (i think its a) marimbas.

@otterly, the robot can ‘improvise’ utilizing the human’s beats and manipulating them, it can sense the density of the user’s playing and make a decision about its own density. The player can play anything it wants and Haile will ‘improvise’ with it, not the other way around.
Cordydan
Sep 4th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
This robot was discussed in “Wired for War,” as an example of how the robot/human relationship may be similar to the working dog/human relationship rather than robots replacing humans in various roles.

A fascinating book that I highly recommend.

Thanks for posting the video (stanky or not).
Christophe
Sep 4th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Rick Allen?
ted
Sep 4th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Just don’t let Sigourney Weaver near it.

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