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I stumbled across this this morning and its totally blown me a way. If this is the future of electronic audio instruments as we know it, I say bring it on.

Audiopad is a composition and performance instrument for electronic music which tracks the positions of objects on a tabletop surface and converts their motion into music. One can pull sounds from a giant set of samples, juxtapose archived recordings against warm synthetic melodies, cut between drum loops to create new beats, and apply digital processing all at the same time on the same table. Audiopad not only allows for spontaneous reinterpretation of musical compositions, but also creates a visual and tactile dialogue between itself, the performer, and the audience.

Audiopad has a matrix of antenna elements which track the positions of electronically tagged objects on a tabletop surface. Software translates the position information into music and graphical feedback on the tabletop. Each object represents either a musical track or a microphone. Fluid geometric graphics projected onto the Audiopad provide real-time feedback to the performer and add to the visual component.

Read the full details here.

MUST WATCH 11Mb demo video here.

That is the coolest musical instrument I have ever seen.

i'm in love. i use abelton live because i love it's real-time approach to production / performance, but audio pad is insane. - xenlab - http://xenlab.ezrpm.com/

Yep this is a shootoff of the SenseTable project from MIT's tangle media group. The concept and execution is great, and its been around for a while now. You can find more info at: http://web.media.mit.edu/~jpatten/sensetable.html http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/sensetable/sensetable.htm And don't forget to checkout their other cool projects: http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects/Tangible_Bits/projects.htm