1997
It all began with Dan Trueman,
and his dissatisfaction with using
guitar speakers to amplify his
electric violin. Perry Cook
took this to heart, and paying
a visit to Bed & Bath, and to
some Radio Shacks, he took up
his trusty saber saw and other
tools. The result: "The Bomb."
1997
Disturbed by the lack of
isolation of the individual
speaker drivers, Perry paid
a visit to many Radio
Shacks and a Home Depot.
This resulted in
"The Boulder."
1997
Being an IKEA type, Dan secured
some wooden salad bowls (as
opposed to the metal ones used
for the Bomb). After some time
in the Cook basement speaker
lab, the spher-o-nauts had some
seriously cracked bowls on their
hands. The bowls had to go to
Long Island for "glue and clamp
rehab" in the wood shop of Dr.
Trueman Sr. With some tom-tom
mounts and legs, "R2" was born.
1998
Aside from his other talents,
Dr. Laurence Trueman
(Dan's dad) is one way
wicked good woodworker.
He worked out the angles
for his power saw soze it
could cut hunks of wood
such that they assemble
into a wonderful sphere
with twelve individual
enclosures (think "Best
of Boulder and Bomb").
Alliterations aside,
"The Critter" was created.
This was integrated into
the Bowed Sensor Speaker
Array (BOSSA).
1999
Growing weary of building
our own spheres, Dan found
United Speaker Enclosures,
who were selling spheres
with one driver in them.
We convinced them to make
make us a bunch of spheres
and hemispheres with 12 or
6 speaker mounting holes.
"Generation 2" was born.
1999
Meanwhile, Curtis Bahn had
become infected with the
spherical speaker virus,
and set out to make a really
big one based on the design
of "The Critter," for use
with his sensor bass. The
result: "Bubba."
1999
Once he had made the biggest,
Curtis wanted to make the
smallest too, but to
emphasize portability and
sensor control of sound
and music performance.
Out popped the "Bubba Ball."
Steffan Moore, tech. director
for RPI's studios, worked
with his professional
cabinet maker uncle, Ken
Malz, to create lots and
lots of these nice hemis
of "Generation 3."
2003
Steffan and Ken had worked
out an improved design with
multi-channel option. And..
2004
Tim Place and Jesse Allison
had founded Electrotap LLC
to make and sell their cool
interface stuff for interactive
electronic music performance.
They began offering the "4th
Generation Hemi" to the world.
.JPG)