Oddball – The drum machine crammed in a ball

About

Oddball is the bouncing ball that helps you express yourself by making music on the go.

Making music is an incredibly powerful way to use your imagination. Musicians are very lucky in this sense, but not everybody has the opportunity to make music. 

We wanted to give everybody the opportunity to create music the same way musicians do. With OddBall, making beats is easy, intuitive, fun and can be done where ever you are.

Oddball comes in two parts, the ball, and the app. The ball behaves as the percussion trigger. Every time you bounce it off a surface, sensors at the heart of the ball communicate with the app via Bluetooth to play a sound through your headphones, speakers, or just the internal speaker on your phone. Oddball is pressure sensitive – The harder you bounce it the more intense the sound, the lighter you bounce it the more delicate. 

You can loop your beats to make complex, intricate tunes, play over your favourite songs and add effects. Since Oddball is inherently shareable, the app will have it’s own social environment, where you can post your latest beats and share them with your community.

Oddball is the most versatile way to play music. Get bouncing, throwing, smashing, flicking, tapping – which ever way you choose to use it, have fun and see what you come up with.

Put your headphones, get outside and explore different ways to play with your surroundings. 

One of the great things about Oddball is that you can play with multiple balls at the same time. Simply plug in a speaker, choose different sounds and jam with your mates.

Techno tennis anyone?
How about augmenting your basketball game with a bass drum?

 Or turn your office into a banging playground.

Use the ball in original ways. Challenge yourself to create new tricks. Use your imagination, let yourself discover unexpected grooves.

Oddball is ideal for people of all ages. The level of craft within the design make it a pleasure to use – whether you are a teenager, adult, or preteen kid with big ambitions, Oddball is for you.

We see Oddball as a fashion statement, choose the style that suits you. Oddball will come in different colours, so whether you are a 'Deep Purple' kind of person, a 'dance the blues' guy, or a 'want to paint it black' kinda gal there is a colour for you.

Scroll down and vote for the final suite of Oddball colours further down the page. 

Also be sure to check out the Pimp your Oddball reward where you can really get nuts with the finish of your ball.

Movie credit: Hollin Jones, Ask Audio 

To get all the experimental musicians excited, we made it possible to use Oddball as a velocity sensitive Bluetooth MIDI controller, so you can connect it to any DAW software on your laptop (such as: Ableton, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, etc.) and control your favourite plugins.

The app allows you to have complete control over the sounds you play. With expansive audio libraries you can choose between traditional or electronic drums, melodic instruments, or any other ‘Odd’ sound under the sun. 

The app has been designed to be super intuitive, so you can focus your time on making your beats. Here are some of the features:

• Choose and play sounds from a large sound library. 
• Loop, record and overdub your beats. 
• Play over your favourite tunes.
• Connect multiple balls and assign different sounds. 
• Add your own sounds. 
• Add sound effects onto your loops. 
• Share your tunes with your friends.

Oddball is easily rechargeable by USB. The charging cable is inspired by the iconic jack cables you usually see plugged into famous electric instruments, such as the Fender Stratocaster.

Oddball can also be charged on the go with a common USB portable battery pack.

The Oddball standard pack comes with one ball and one charging cable delivered in a beautifully crafted box. You also get the app with preloaded sounded libraries and effects for free.

We are running a poll to find out which are the most popular colours. The designs with the highest votes will become the first colours we will deliver to you. Do you like it load proud and leary, or cool dark and subdued? You choose.

Vote here!

Why not turn the volume up to eleven and pledge for our two, three pack or even six pack. 

If you are looking for something really special, let your imagination go wild, choose a special finish or custom colour, you name it and we will personally make it for you. Pledge for a bespoke Oddball and we will get in touch to pimp it up for you. 

Oddball has a series of sensors at it's heart that are protected by a strong core, that helps withstand the craziest of bounces. 

It has been a long but fulfilling journey to get where we are today, here are just a few picks of the development of the project across the two years.

Your support will help us:

• Prepare the injection molding tools for production
• Finalize the development of the firmware and App
• Buy all the necessary components and materials for production
• Testing and quality control 

Oddball Founders Nathan Webb and Pasquale Totaro met at the Royal College of Art. Whilst studying Design Products there, they both discovered a mutual interest in music and creating inspiring interactive objects that create a sense of wonder in the everyday.   

Photo Credit: Hollin Jones, Ask Audio

Nathan Prior to his time at the RCA Nathan was a multi award winning Graphic designer, with ten years experience. During his time he has worked with some of the most disruptive companies on the market, including Apple, Uber and the BBC.

Pasquale
Before attending the RCA Pasquale studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He also has experience working with some of the most forward thinking companies including Apple.  

Gadget Lab (Shenzhen) – Manufacturing Partners
Mr Victor Chen and his company Gadget Lab have a wealth of experience bringing some of the highest quality tech to your homes – they are handling the manufacturing of the plastics, electronics and packaging for Oddball.