odd ball is a company that makes fun electronic bouncy balls that allow you to generate MIDI sounds by touching or bouncing them. The company is adding new gestures to its device, including twisting, turning, moving, shaking, and throwing in the air, so you can generate sounds in a new way.
With the latest update to the app, the company also lets you be the DJ at a house party with these gestures. It has included a DJ mode with some background tracks and on-screen instructions for gestures for that track. When you combine one or more gestures, the app will play sound effects on top of the track.
Image credits: odd ball
The startup now classifies gestures into two categories: triggers (tap, shake, spin), which the company describes as similar to playing a note; and Modulators (move, rotate, throw air), which the company considers like knobs on a console.
The intensity of the gesture also matters. The app will generate sound based on how hard or fast you spin or shake the ball.
Image credits: odd ball
Pasquale Totaro, the company’s founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that the ball has a built-in sensor that the company was not using. But with the new update, the startup now uses that sensor.
“The hardware originally had a motion sensor which we didn’t use at all, it was just there. The idea was to later release a new firmware that would give it life. That’s where we are now. It took a lot of R&D to unlock all the features. Imagine a trackpad that only understood taps… now it also has zoom, pinch, drag, scroll, etc.” Totaro told TechCrunch via email.
He mentioned that the team had to work hard to separate one gesture from another.
The company
Odd Ball started in 2018 with a Kickstarter campaign and the company began selling the first version in November 2020. Totaro said the startup wanted to make the music creation process easy and fun. He said playing with a ball, which is intuitive for humans, was one way to achieve this.
“Everyone already knows how to bounce, shake and throw a ball, and all these actions, naturally, are already musical and rhythmic. This quality of the ball practically breaks down the initial learning barriers that a music lover has to overcome when he tries to learn an instrument, equipment or software,” he said.
Image credits: odd ball
The company has sold more than 25,000 devices, with the main buyers being children and music lovers. While Odd Ball hasn’t raised institutional money, he has some advisors on the board. These include Glass Direct founder and Google executive Jamie Murray Wells; Ali Mostoufi, whose startup me.com Inc. was acquired by Apple in 2008; former EMI and Warner Bros. Records executive Ted Cohen; and former CEO of digital media company Mitu, Roy Burstin.
Totaro said the company is profitable and is looking to expand its product line with two devices in the works. Odd Ball is working on a version of the ball with multiple RGB LEDs for a new dimension of interaction.
Its gesture technology is adaptable and is also looking to extend to other form factors. In particular, Totaro said Odd Byall is developing the ability to make everyday objects useful in the XR/VR sector.