Mandala City - Fan Page & User Group for the Synesthesia Mandala Drum
Welcome to Mandala City, a site centered around the Synesthesia Mandala Drum.
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News and Updates
February 8th 2008:
Synesthesia have released V1.5 beta of Virtual Brain. It's great too see they've not only added lots of cool new featres, but also taking a lot of community suggestions and turning them into new features as well:
The above list is only regurgitating what was posted to the Google Group a few days ago. First impressions are VB1.5 is definitely geared up for people with multiple Mandalas. The interface is more sensibly laid out, all in one window now like Battery, and looks like the annoying little interface and operability glitches are ironed out. A proper review will follow when I get time to play with it. Look forward to that!
December 3rd 2008:
February 17th, 2008:
Synesthesia will be ready for their next wave of shipments at the end of this month. This is great news for anyone who missed out on the first shipment last December. Some of you are probably still mad at having to wait this long, but look on the bright side, you'll receive it fresh with all the new software updates, and won't have to worry about some of the setup issues those of us first owners faced. (check out the long forum threads for all that chatter...). According to the inventor and head of Synesthesia Corp, the reason for the delay between shipments was purely because demand far surpassed what they ever anticipated for the Mandala 2.0. This is great news for everybody, it means the community gets bigger. Rock on everyone!
There's also been some interest in getting an online sound library going so we can exchange presets. For the time being you can upload files to the google group, but there's a 2GB quota. It's not quite full yet so you can use that. If demand for such a thing increases then some other system will have to eventuate. (maybe even the mothership themselves are working on something for us...)
November 15th, 2007:
The Mandala 2.0 is released! At a paltry price of $349 ($650 cheaper than the first release) it's an absolute steal. It's the same sensitive pad, with a funky new purple shell. It looks like the same colour on the Mandala prototypes Danny Carey has been seen using. The main differences between the 1.0 and the new one, besides the more accessible price is there isn't a separate "brain" box for the 2.0, and the 2.0 is totally USB based. All the electronic innards and I/O are squeezed inside the pad itself, which just has a single USB output you plug into your computer. All of the controls for setting up zones and global settings on your pad are now a function of the Mandala "Virtual Brain" software. Check it out! www.synesthesiacorp.com
October 1st, 2007:
The Mandala 2.0 is being released November 1. Whilst a lot remains unanswered, especially in terms of upgrade path from Mandala 1.0, you can get a summary of the major new features at my other blog The Rhythms of The Earth. The big step is USB and software integration, something many of us have been waiting for from the day we got our V1.0's. Keep an eye on the mothership's website come Nov 1.
What is the Mandala Drum?
The Mandala drum represents the ultimate state of the art, a fusion of primitive tribal drum and electronic versatility. It's multi zonal responsiveness means that even with just a single drum pad, the artist is able to get a seemingly infinite amount of sounds and textures out of it. The Mandala drum is responsive not only to the velocity you strike the pad, but also the location you strike the pad. It is highly sensitive to your speed and enhances your dexterity, and can handle pretty much any rudiment you roll at it.
As the Mandala brain is always able to transmit multi channel MIDI information, the possibilities for your own customization using external samplers and synthesizers are endless. You could setup many unique sounds by using just the Mandalas own brain and sound generator, your own MIDI modules responding to zone and strike information, or both. (the Mandala 2.0 is no different in this respect. Although it has no built in MIDI interface, you can still route MIDI back out of your computer).
The Mandala also has many off-shoot benefits for the drummers that play them. As is promoted on their web site, your stroke accuracy, dexterity, timing and dynamics are likely to be enhanced by using Mandala. As the Mandala is highly sensitive to your sticking, you're going to become a better drummer for using them. You don't need to whack the thing - and perhaps at the price you don't want to whack it - but you can get many subtle nuances by varying your dynamics, from pianissimo to fortissimo. You can also just use your fingers and hands to get different textures.
Your creatively is also likely to develop. I've been quite inspired by the sounds and possibilities. Finally it's also a great instrument to have sitting on your lap whilst watching the T.V., a super boredom killer and fantastic talking piece. It's also a helluva lot more exciting than a dumb practice pad.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, here's a Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/Synesthesia_Mandala_Drum/
If you are a Mandala artist, have some songs made with Mandalas, have heard artists that are using Mandalas, or plain just want to hook up your interest in Mandalas, be sure to join Mandala Drums @ Google Groups. The idea is to connect musicians with a like minded approach to making music. The Google Group started on July 20th 2006, with members growing. Now that the 2.0 is here I suspect it will grow pretty quickly.
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page updated February 8, 2009.