BLUE MAN GROUP music
BLUE MAN GROUP

Percussion Tubes

 very stylish boring toy drum kit with hand gesture control & demos

This is the drum kit to the stylish Blue Man Group - Keyboard Experience. It has the same unique case design and responsive IR gesture sensors, but is IMO even more boring than the latter.

There is only one drumkit mode (8 fixed sounds) and 4 additional mallet preset sounds, however with only 1 octave and no sharps these are not much fun to play. In "riff" mode it automatically trills them, but here it has even only 6 notes left (i.e. less than an octave) because the rightmost sensor stays always assigned to base drum while the leftmost sensor controls the tempo in a very awkward way. The sensors can be played with hands or 2 special plastic sticks those have floppy soft PVC paddles at their end. Unfortunately they are not velocity sensitive. There is also a primitive sequencer (records in realtime and plays in a loop), 5 fixed-key background accompaniment patterns and 5 demos those can be played to; several of them sound like taken out of the Keyboard Experience with the main voice forgotten to enable. (Unlike the latter, there is no conductor mode, thus also the sensors have no LEDs.) The case with its shiny metallic surfaces and hidden red dot matrix display looks like a mysterious piece of laboratory equipment All sounds are made from fairly high resolution samples and there is even an iPod- shaped tray for MP3 players. But this all helps nothing since it has way too few features. The 2 visible front speakers are fake props; there is only one speaker at the case bottom that sounds rumbly, dull and a bit bassless.

The instrument was released by Toy Quest as a merchandising product of the music band "Blue Man Group". This rock band is famous for their stage performances with blue painted heads, blacklight effects and plenty of specially invented melodic percussion instruments made from large plastic pipe constructions, those obviously inspired the case design of this thing.

The case bottom writing says:
 
© 2006 Blue Man Productions, Inc.
Manufactured under license by Toyquest, a division of Manley.
TM & 2006 Toyquest, a division of Manley.
LOS ANGELES; CA 90064
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
MADE IN CHINA

Quote from the manual: "Your Blueman Group Percussion Tubes is a true musical instrument. It's designed to allow you to use YOUR creativity to drum with musical scores and contribute your own musical flare to your favourite artist's recordings..."

Like with the keyboard, unfortunately the entire instrument concept looks like rather created by an advertisement department than by musical instrument designers, since nobody else would certainly come in mind to make nowadays such a lousy user interface with so few sounds and features. Thus do not pay too much. It's a pretty design object, but as an instrument it is boring. IMO the Beat Square - AIR-Dance Mixer is a much more exciting and versatile motion sensor rhythm machine.
The instrument was originally sold in a very costly show packaging, that included a bulky blue throwaway plastic frame that constitutes one of the worst wastes of plastic I ever saw with modern toys. Despite it even contained a hand full of winged metal screws, it falls apart when unscrewed from the instrument and so can not be used as its storage case. I bought mine used on eBay, so it came only with parts of it.

main features:

eastereggs:

notes:

The case design has the same noble hitech style like the Blue Man Group - Keyboard Experience. While the rest of the frame is cream white, the center unit is painted in a shinier kind of metallic white or pearl colour. The hand sensors look like bluish camera lenses (although the 2 holes with the actual IR diodes disturb this appearance). Although the control panel looks like perforated sheet aluminium, everything is made of plastic. Only at a close look you see that the case is constructed very differently than what it looks like. The 3 blue circles on the logo to the right are printed mock-ups instead of buttons, and even the 2 front speakers are just fake props; the green rings around them have each 3 green LEDs those flash up during each sound (wired parallel, thus they can not light up individually). The genuine speaker sits at the bottom and sounds muffled by its stupid placement; the only 5mm low case pods provide only a tiny gap between case bottom and table top (or floor) to squeeze the sound waves out. The rather loose mechanical construction rumbles during loud sounds. I really wonder why they didn't integrate extendable pods or a small collapsible stand to improve the speaker performance; the strange case style with its horizontal pipes even suggests that this may have been planned in an early prototype stage.

The towering row of 8 sensor tubes somewhat remind to organ pipes; their different sizes seem to have no logical meaning; the 3 bigger tubes are assigned to "cymbal", "electric snare" and "conga", while the base drum has only a small tube. Possible the bigger tubes to the left side should allude to pipe organs, despite here only 2 sizes exist.  At the case front are 2 storage tubes for the drumstick paddles, but placing them there wastes much space because they stick 14cm out of them; placing them horizontally above the control panel makes much more sense. (I only worry that plasticizer from the paddle blades may attack painted parts over time when carelessly laid onto them.) The instrument was shipped with a Blue Man Group DVD. I haven't examined the hardware yet, but it is certainly similar to the Keyboard Experience, although it here has way less switch contacts and LEDs connected. Also here it includes the tiny reset button hole (only reachable by ballpen) at the case bottom, despite the instrument does not hold any data in memory when powered off, and the power switch seems to disconnect supply voltage anyway. Thus the hardware was likely designed for a different CPU or software version with more complex features. I really would like to know what the prototype concept behind this instrument was, and how many good features were killed by managers to cut cost or make it "easier" to play for novices.

The hand sensors respond at about 7cm distance and only sense on/off (no analogue distance detection). The power switch to the left has 3 positions {try me, off, on} and its writing can be only seen from the side. In "try me" (demo) mode the sensors do nothing; only the buttons cycle alternatingly through shortened versions of the "rhythm" and demo tunes, while the green rings rapidly flicker. The instrument always starts in normal mode ("D") with drumkit sound. Annoying is that the 1.7mm power supply jack is too small for standard AC- adapter plugs, and it seems to drain batteries quite fast. Also the frame with the towering sensor tubes is not collapsible. With low batteries the sensors stop working properly; with mine the leftmost one fails first.

The user interface of the instrument is controlled through only 3 buttons (green, "I" and "R"). The green one cycles through the main modes, while "I" ("instruments") cycles through the preset sounds and "R" ("rhythms") through the background patterns. After each button press, the dot matrix display lights up to display a character for 4s and then goes out again. In the manual the mode "F" is claimed to be used together with background patterns or an MP3 player, but I found no behaviour difference to "D". (It may be that "F" additionally enables the sound input plug; I haven't checked this. But I guess it is just a useless relic from the more complex Keyboard Experience, where the corresponding modes "DRU" and "FRP" differ in the function of its single blue button, which on "DRU" behaves like button "I", while on "FRP" it behaves like button "R".)
 
green button: function:
D drums (normal mode)
1..5 demo song 1..5
F free play
R sequencer record 
P sequencer play
"I" button: function:
D drumkit mode
X xylophone
S steel drum
T Blueman Tubes
M marimba

The "I" button alternatingly cycles through these preset sounds in normal and "riff" mode (where the letter flashes).

In "riff" mode the sensor tubes 2 to 6 play instead of individual notes each a trilled 4 beat pattern of the form "X & Y together, X, Y, X, ..." in a loop, where X and Y are 2 notes. With sensor 3 to 6 both notes form a duet, while sensor 2 plays 2 times the same note (i.e. X & Y = louder). Each trigger of a sensor plays its pattern so long it is held, but it always plays all 4 notes of a started pattern and does not truncate the rest when the touch is shorter. In drumkit mode the pattern consists of 2 toms of different pitch. The sensor 8 stays in "riff" mode always assigned to the base drum (without a pattern), while sensor 1 controls the tempo in a very awkward and unobvious way; holding a hand/ paddle over it slowly increases tempo (up to a fast purring ring or drumroll), while a short move over it switches back to normal. Hitting it very short seems to switch tempo sometimes even lower, but this behaviour is so random and hard to reproduce that it may be a glitch.

The timbre quality of the main voice is fairly high, although the speaker is a little dull and rumbling. On a kind of keyboard stand it would certainly sound better. The preset sounds are quite establishment and sound like expected, so I only explain the unusual one. In drumkit mode the "electric snare" is just a normal snare sample that sounds a little more tonal than the other one. The "hi timbale" is a tonal high drum (like a bongo) that decays a bit slower than others. The "Blueman tubes" (T) sounds like a muted e-bass with short envelope (slap bass?); it is also a little nasal like a banjo. Great is that the sensors respond with very exact timing, thus you can play precisely controlled drumrolls by moving spreaded fingers over it; each passing finger re-triggers the sound exactly once. By closing the fingers, you can quickly change to play single drum beats. With the paddle drumsticks the sensors respond a little earlier than with fingers. To pass a sensor without triggering it, simply hold the paddle vertically. When you hold it tilted, you can nicely play fast drumrolls by slightly shaking it. Its a pity that the manufacturer didn't add a 100 sound bank with each sound assignable to the tubes and velocity sensitive sensors.

With "R" you can select a music loop (mislabelled "rhythm") that plays in the background like a fixed- key accompaniment. The patterns correspond to the Keyboard Experience, but unlike there you can at least switch the preset sound in between, and when you select one with "riff" mode, you can even change the tempo by its tempo control (sensor 1). They have no separate volume control. Press the green button to quit.

background melody loops:

  1. Blue Man Group theme (with fast ticking rhythm)
  2. slow funky rock (e-bass, piano & drumkit)
  3. slow bluesy hardrock fusion (?)
  4. faster tune (drumkit + brass, reminds to "Sonic the Hedgehog" videogame tunes)
  5. bigband boogie
The demo song modes (select 1..5 with green button) here do the same like the background patterns, with the only difference that a whole song is playing in the background. (There is no conductor mode.) 2 of the demos sound like mutilated versions of the Keyboard Experience with messed up instrumentation; most lack the main voice.

demo songs:

  1. ? [funk rock, without main voice]
  2. Respect - Just a Little Bit [?, without main voice]
  3. Jonny Be Good [?, without main voice]
  4. ? [russian dance?, like 5 on Keyboard Experience, without main voice]
  5. Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 (by Franz Liszt, pop arrangement with drumkit)
To use the sequencer, select the "R" mode. With the "R" button you can select one of the background melodies (1..5), but unlike claimed in the manual, this is not necessary. After some seconds you will hear 4 clicks of a metronome. Now anything you play will be recorded in realtime - including preset sound changes. (But changing the background pattern deletes the sequence.) You can record up to about 94 monophonic notes or percussion events. To play the recorded sequence, press the green button again ("P" mode). The recorded user pattern will now repeat in a loop and you can play to it. When you select a preset sound with "riff" mode, you can even change the tempo by its tempo control (sensor 1). The sequencer contents is erased by power off or auto power- off.

The hidden self test mode is activated by holding the green and the "I" button together during power on. The display cycles through "P", [square], "2". With the "I" button you can now cycle through multiple menu points and select them with the green one. The "R" button plays a marimba sound.
 
"I" button: function: green button cycles through:
P[square]2 self test activated -
L LED test all matrix display rows ("-") & columns ("|") from top to bottom and left to right, followed by the green LED rings
I infrared sensor test Hands over sensor tubes play their drumkit mode sounds
A audio test tones {1, 4} plays a buzzy distorted sine wave tone at 1000Hz or 400Hz. The tone fades in with a short envelope.
N internal sound generator test {D, X, S, T, M, D flashing, X flashing, S flashing, T flashing, M flashing} The corresponding preset sound plays twice a second like an alarm signal. The flashing ones are "riff" versions.
(blank) self test exits Instrument re-starts in normal mode (D) and selects preset sound "D" by the blue button press.

When in "N" mode of the self test the green button is held while pressing "I", the self test returns to P[square]2 instead of exiting.
 

 removal of these screws voids warranty...    
WarrantyVoid
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