Hi all you Jambé followers.
First, we want to thank all those who have signed up for our newsletter. This gives us a direct channel to our followers, to keep them updated on all the product details and Kickstarter essentials. If you would like to join our newsletter mailing group, you can sign up for it at the top of our website main page.
As you probably know, we had a fantastic time at NAMM2015. One of the greatest thrill was watching drummers and percussionists coming up to the Jambé for the first time, and then being blown away by the sounds and the realistic feel of the pads. We worked a long time to get this perfected, and it shows.
The Jambé pads offer a perfect feel for hand drum players, with a soft but firm touch, that responds to the slightest tap to the hardest hit. The Jambé also has the perfect bounce and give when playing with normal drumsticks. The sensors and software can immediately detect if you are hitting with a hand or stick. Even an open or closed hand difference can be detected by our sensors. The Jambé knows exactly how you’re playing and makes adjustments accordingly. The sensors can detect over 1000 different pressure levels, per pad ! This is a serious instrument.
Now some people are confusing Jambé with a simple MIDI controller pad. That is completely mis-interpreting what Jambé is and how it works. Jambé is not a MIDI controller; it is a high-resolution sensor system, inside a custom percussion instrument. See the diagram below:
Note the relationship between Jambé and the iPad. The Jambé contains an embedded computer with advanced sensors and scanning hardware. The iPad does the sensor DSP analysis, and gesture and hit detection, along with the code to direct what action to take along with the Jambé sensor data. You can output a high-resolution sound, vary dozens of parameters in our DSP algorithms, including parameters for other Jambé pads, or simply create a standard MIDI message. Talk about versatile.
When we designed the Jambé, we purposefully separated out the hardware and software specific areas. This has tremendous advantages for production and for use. The Jambé hardware, the actual drum, sensors, and embedded electronics, can be completed and tested before the iPad software is finished. Therefore our production can begin a lot sooner than expected for such a complex instrument. The iPad software can be worked on all the way up to the actual first shipping day, therefore the application will incorporate a lot more functions than we had orignally planned.
Another BIG advantage is that we can release new software as easy as pushing out a new iPad application revision. A couple taps on your iPad and you’ll have the latest app and kits, all ready to play in minutes. No more firmware updates with windows computers and USB thumb drives. The Jambé hardware never needs updating; all the heavy software code exists in the iPad application, which we update over the internet.
We hope this answered some of your technical Jambé questions.
If not, please send us an email at playme @ getjambe . com, and we’ll get back to you right away.
Thanks,
John, Mark, and the entire Jambé team.
