Introducing – Steve
by Administrator on Oct.10, 2009, under Steve
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When my band went into the studio this past year to record we had the intent of making a very layered recording. For me this meant a lot of drum beats, both played live and programmed via drum machines. We’ve always been into layering, it’s part of our sound, but this time around we went overboard (in a good way – i think). The band started giving me a hard time, that I was coming up with too many beats and that I was working myself into a hole that come tour I would not be able to pull myself out of. Well I told them not to worry, that I was building a robot drummer to help me out and as usual – they just laughed.
Months earlier I had shown Josh Caldwell, an old friend of mine who was a mechanical engineering student, an idea I had for a mechanical drumming device (this was pretty much a few parts from the hardware store thrown together to get the idea across). Well to my own disbelief he called me a few weeks later and told me to meet him for lunch at Health Camp, he had something to show me. I get to lunch and he’s there with a friend of his, Eli Hernandez (another engineer) and a completely redesigned, much improved 3D computer model of the mechanical drumming device. I was so stoked.
Well life got away from us and months later we still hadn’t really messed with anything. Around mid-summer though I started getting nervous about the prospect of touring without any backup beats, so I gave Josh and Eli a call and we got to work (really I should say they got to work). We spent the next two months out at Texas State Technical College building parts, testing, prototyping and just having good old fashion machine fun. I bought a MIDI decoding circuit kit from John at Highly Liquid to convert MIDI to electronic on/off pulses and built it into an old headphone splitter box I had found at a thrift store.
The band was pretty amazed, I must say, when I showed up for tour with Steve in tow. He came strong with the beats even though he can be a bit stiff at times, but you have to admire his resilience. There has been some question as to the name “Steve” and where it comes from. Well thats another story for another time.
86 Comments for this entry
9 Trackbacks / Pingbacks for this entry
-
David Crowder*Band – Oh, Happiness « MantrA[S2]
October 12th, 2009 on 3:05 pm[...] For those of you who love to follow along, DCB has a new member of the band: Steve3PO. Here’s Bwack’s post on him in [...]
-
Auto-drummer - Hack a Day
November 13th, 2009 on 9:15 pm[...] a cup of mechanical engineering with a dash of drum set and you end up with Steve, the robotic drummer. We know that it uses an MSA-T Midi Decoder but that’s about the extent of what has been [...]
-
Auto-Drummer « JWstudios
November 15th, 2009 on 10:14 am[...] a cup of mechanical engineering with a dash of drum set and you end up withSteve, the robotic drummer. We know that it uses an MSA-T Midi Decoder but that’s about the extent of what has been shared. [...]
-
Create Digital Music » Steve_3po and Other Robotic Drummers
December 29th, 2009 on 7:10 pm[...] Introducing – Steve [...]
-
Steve_3po and Other Robotic Drummers | uptownboogiedown
December 29th, 2009 on 8:25 pm[...] Introducing – Steve [...]
-
Round-Up: Robotic Drummers, Robotic Percussion | websla.com
January 2nd, 2010 on 7:46 pm[...] Introducing – Steve [...]
-
A not so complete list of robot music instruments and automated instruments | Sonic Robots
May 12th, 2012 on 12:29 am[...] Jeremy Bush, drummer of the christian rock band “David Crowder Band” developed this fully functioning pneumatic drumbot called “Steve 3PO” with engineers Josh Caldwell and Eli Hernandez. Link [...]
October 12th, 2009 on 3:35 am
I said this on Facebook, but I want to make sure that you read this.
“I must say, that I’m not too thrilled about ‘Steve’. Sure, robotics is nice, but me personally seeing B-Wack up there actually doing drums…just seems right. Now I must say that I haven’t actually seen Steve in concert, but I think those two clips is good enough. B-Wack (or if someone from the band could tell B-Wack), you have alot of amazing … Read Moretalents (such as drumming and making cool stuff) and you should defintely use them for God! And I think you look more passionate in your drumming for God when youre actually doing it yourself! I don’t mean to be harsh, but I just want to say whats on my heart.”
October 12th, 2009 on 7:07 am
My God, Bwack! You keep amazing me!
October 12th, 2009 on 1:31 pm
BTW … to get rid of the “stiffness” through some randomization into the velocity parameter of the MIDI files … not much, but just a little … it won’t change the beat per se, but it will change how hard “Steve” hits the drums (if the mechanics will handle it)
October 12th, 2009 on 2:53 pm
@ charlie: The point of the robot is to do the beats that B-wack is not doing. B-wack still drums, but there is so much going on that Steve is needed to here the same song in concert that you have heard on the cd. Simply amazing.
October 12th, 2009 on 4:00 pm
I went to a DCB concert on Oct 10 with my fiancee and David introduced Steve to us… I thought he was an awesome addition and te beats were really great with B-wack and Steve together. Great show!!!
October 12th, 2009 on 6:38 pm
I think God is glorified when we use the talents he has given us for His glory. Using Steve to play things that would not be humanly possible (for whatever reason) to reproduce in a live setting is no different than Bwack using his MacBook and Ableton Live to trigger loops that provide synth leads and pads that the band does not have to be responsible for.
Keep up the good work, Bwack. Very impressive.
October 12th, 2009 on 10:52 pm
this is so cool, can you build me one??
Is it solenoids??
October 15th, 2009 on 2:32 am
I have heard of such things, but never have I seen them come together like this! Steve is an awesome addition! Can’t wait to see what you do with him next… assuming steve is a male by the way…
November 5th, 2009 on 4:34 pm
I’d like to buy one, how much??????
November 19th, 2009 on 11:05 am
Pure genius. Now to determine if it’s evil genius, or just the regular kind…
November 23rd, 2009 on 10:22 pm
Hi any updates it’s been a while
November 23rd, 2009 on 10:22 pm
hi any updates its been a while
December 16th, 2009 on 10:44 am
Dudes whats with the updates, there isn’t any can you guys give us all an update??
cheers
David
April 25th, 2010 on 2:32 am
Bwack: Great work! I love Stv3PO! Can we give him a mannequin head and then hook up some fiber optics so that his eyes and maybe his hair sparkles whenever he drums? Also, how about placing near the drumsticks some flesh-colored rubber gloves that look like hands – he can have 8 or 10 or 12 hands. Keep it up!!
June 15th, 2010 on 5:43 pm
Hi there and thanks for the information – I have certainly picked up something interesting from here. I did however have a few technical difficulties with this website, as I had to reload the page several times before I could get it to display properly. I wonder if your hosting is adequate for your needs? Not that I am one to complain, but slow loading times times will sometimes affect your ranking in the search engines and will reduce your quality score if using Adwords. Anyhow I am adding your RSS feed to my email and look forward to more of your informative content. Please update this again sometime soon….
October 1st, 2010 on 2:28 pm
drum sets made by pearl are nice sounding and tough too:-”
January 23rd, 2011 on 3:58 pm
fantastic long legs! georgeous body! come with me and your wild hot fantasies will come true!
January 25th, 2011 on 6:13 am
-”- I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives great information -;`
January 25th, 2011 on 6:18 pm
It’s outstanding that bloggers possess adequate time to be able to write great posts so regularly. The whole net is a little bit like that, I suppose. In any event, good post, I really enjoyed reading through it. Hopefully more in the future
~ Isabella
April 7th, 2011 on 9:45 am
Hello there First Five Finger Discount time hopped here in your internet site, founde on Yahoo. Thank you kindly to your informative response. I appreciate your encouragement and advice. I am honored to be corresponding with you. Please suggest me which is the very best method to correspond with you in the future, must your schedule let.
July 20th, 2011 on 5:46 pm
I am often blogging and i really appreciate your content. The article has really peaked my interest. I am going to bookmark your site and keep checking for new information.
August 6th, 2011 on 3:17 pm
I would like to show some thanks to you for bailing me out of this predicament. As a result of scouting through the online world and getting suggestions which were not pleasant, I thought my entire life was done. Being alive minus the solutions to the problems you’ve solved by means of the guideline is a crucial case, and the ones that might have in a negative way affected my career if I hadn’t come across the blog. Your personal capability and kindness in dealing with all the things was useful. I am not sure what I would’ve done if I had not come across such a step like this. I can now look ahead to my future. Thanks for your time very much for your specialized and result oriented help. I won’t hesitate to recommend your web page to any individual who should have direction about this issue.
August 8th, 2011 on 9:54 pm
You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.
August 24th, 2011 on 10:24 am
Loving the information on this web site , you have done outstanding job on the articles .
August 24th, 2011 on 10:25 am
The subsequent time I learn a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my option to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you possibly can repair if you werent too busy looking for attention.
August 24th, 2011 on 10:46 am
Have you at any time considered as about which incorporate a smaller little little bit way in surplus of just your articles? I mean, anything at all you say is beneficial and everything. but envision from the celebration you added some pretty good pics or movies to generate your posts more, “pop”! Your content material is great but with pics and video clip clip clips, this internet page could undeniably be a person exclusive even though implementing rather best in its niche. pretty good blog!
August 24th, 2011 on 10:50 am
Do you have any other similar blogs and/or connected fields of expression. This info has caused in me some quasi-cascade effect that has resulted in an exceedingly great rearangement of my data nearly like an entire paradigm shift within the approach I understand the planet. thanks such a lot for this and I bet you wil accumulate a lot of Karma and positive chi due to your wonderful endeavor during this blog
August 24th, 2011 on 11:34 am
I wanted to follow along and allow you to know how great I treasured discovering this blog today. I’d consider it a good honor to operate at my workplace and be able to utilize the tips discussed on your website and also engage in visitors’ feedback like this. Should a position involving guest article author become on offer at your end, make sure you let me know.
August 24th, 2011 on 11:55 am
Das Thema interessiert mich sehr, kannst Du eventuell etwas detaillierter ausführen, wie ich zu weiteren Infos zu dem Thema kommen kann?
August 25th, 2011 on 8:36 pm
I’m impressed, I have to say. Actually rarely do I encounter a weblog that’s each educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you may have hit the nail on the head. Your thought is outstanding; the problem is something that not enough people are talking intelligently about. I’m very joyful that I stumbled across this in my search for one thing regarding this.
August 27th, 2011 on 2:58 pm
I do trust all the ideas you’ve presented in your post. They are really convincing and will definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are very quick for newbies. Could you please prolong them a little from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.
September 6th, 2011 on 11:08 pm
Thank you for the right points there. I am sort of new to online , and so i published this on put in my personal record, much better way to go about monitoring after that it producing?
September 11th, 2011 on 7:46 am
My developer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on several websites for about a year and am anxious about switching to another platform. I have heard fantastic things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress content into it? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!
September 12th, 2011 on 12:57 pm
This is exactly the information I want to. Many thanks for writing this write-up.
September 13th, 2011 on 5:04 pm
Aw, i thought this was a really nice post. In idea I’d like to put in writing such as this furthermore – spending time and actual attempt to have a really good write-up
September 23rd, 2011 on 2:13 am
highly educational and professionally written. Great Work.
September 24th, 2011 on 8:49 pm
Hello there, You have done a fantastic job here. I’ll definitely be back. And will personally suggest it to my friends. I’m sure they will benefit from this web site. Thank you.
September 26th, 2011 on 4:42 pm
After I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a comment is added I get 4 emails with the same comment. Is there any manner you’ll be able to remove me from that service? Thanks!
October 1st, 2011 on 3:35 pm
The subsequent time I learn a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my choice to read, however I truly thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you may fix when you werent too busy in search of attention.
October 6th, 2011 on 4:11 am
keep up the great work , I read few posts on this website and I believe that your web blog is rattling interesting and holds sets of good info .
October 8th, 2011 on 1:00 pm
A lot of thanks for each of your hard work on this site. Betty really likes doing research and it is obvious why. Almost all notice all regarding the dynamic manner you give useful tactics through your blog and in addition encourage participation from other individuals on the concept plus our own simple princess is actually discovering a whole lot. Take advantage of the rest of the new year. You are always doing a remarkable job.
October 8th, 2011 on 5:56 pm
I genuinely enjoy examining on this site, it has superb posts .
October 9th, 2011 on 4:11 am
Well written article, really like, I hope to write some very useful articles such as.
October 9th, 2011 on 4:39 pm
Good site! I really love how it is simple on my eyes and the data are well written. I am wondering how I might be notified when a new post has been made. I’ve subscribed to your feed which must do the trick! Have a nice day!
October 10th, 2011 on 7:41 am
I think this website contains some very superb info for everyone : D.
October 10th, 2011 on 7:21 pm
I believe other website proprietors should take this site as an model, very clean and wonderful user genial pattern .
October 11th, 2011 on 9:26 am
I stumbled on this article on Yahoo even though I was seeking something similar, but I just wanted to say very good stuff and I completely agree. Is there any way to subscribe to fresh content?
October 11th, 2011 on 12:25 pm
This is the appropriate blog for anyone who needs to seek out out about this topic. You understand a lot its virtually onerous to argue with you (not that I truly would need…HaHa). You positively put a brand new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Nice stuff, simply nice!
October 15th, 2011 on 8:13 pm
I’d incessantly want to be update on new content on this website , saved to bookmarks ! .
October 16th, 2011 on 7:51 am
Merely wanna input that you have a very decent site, I love the design and style it actually stands out.