Category — electronic instruments

Scoot over, Nordic Track™. Step aside, Stair Master™. America’s living rooms are tied of boring old fitness equipment taking up space, seldom used except on Sunday morning TV infomercials. Drum kits are the new phenom for home workout machinery. There’s the upcoming 2Box Drumit from Sweden. Or the more affordable Roland V-Drum HD-1 made in Japan:

Get either one for that total upper AND lower body work-out combined with virtual rock-star training!

Lose weight while playing along to your favorite hits produced back when they used actual drummers. Tone those arms so that you can beat all your friends playing Rock Band™ on your Sony PS3 & Microsoft XBox 360. Or, if music is not your thing, use one as an avant-garde techno sculpture center-piece.

While not especially warm and fuzzy, these Thingamagoops from Bleep Labs in Austin, Texas are quite cute and make intriguing electronic noises. Each one is actually an analog synthesizer hooked up to a light sensor and a light, creating a feedback loop of crazy acoustic fun. I’ve heard there are bands that use these on stage (made easier by the fact that each Thingamagoop has a phono out jack for plugging into an FX box or an amplifier.) On their site, you can custom make your Thingamagoop for $100.

If you were Gary Numan back in 1979 or so (and who wasn’t?), you needed about six Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 synthesizers to play your mega-hit song Cars live. Now, Dave Smith, the Prophet’s inventor, has made a multi-timbral modern update to this classic musical gadget, the Prophet ‘08, shown here in table-top form.

“Here in my car…”