Musical instruments have come a long way since the days of cavemen banging rocks together. After a long march through history, recent electronics opened a whole new world of sound in the form of new instruments and modifications to existing acoustic ones. Let’s look at a few of the more unique electronic devices for musical instruments, some of which have changed music forever while others have been noble experiments.

The Kaoss Pad

Before the advent of the smartphone and its user-friendly touch screen, experimental electronic musicians were finger-pointing their way to new and unorthodox live sounds thanks to the Korg Kaoss Pad. The device is a real-time sampler that manipulates live sound in various ways, from creating loops to bending pitches. Perhaps no band has made the Kaoss Pad more famous than experimental rock quintet Radiohead, who deployed the sampler in songs from 2000’s landmark Kid A. The group used the Kaoss Pad to manipulate Thom Yorke’s vocals as he sang, repeating them back over themselves and twisting them forward and backward. This created a dense sound collage in concert that would take hours in the studio to produce. Chaotic indeed.

The Ondes Martenot

Another signature sound of Radiohead and Kid A isn’t a modern instrument, as it precedes the band by nearly a century. The ondes martenot, at first glance, is a simple electric organ. And to the inexperienced player, that’s all it is. Closer inspection shows a ring device that allows the organist to apply glissandi across notes, gracefully sliding from pitch to pitch. The ondes martenot is similar to another early, radio-inspired electronic instrument, the theremin, but with much more precise control than its Russian counterpart.

The Helpinstill Piano Sensor

The meteoric rise of the electric guitar in popular music led to some interesting attempts at electrification of other instruments. One such attempt was a very happy accident. When blues pianist and engineer Charles Helpinstill had the idea to apply magnetic pickups to the strings of a piano, he envisioned opening the piano to the psychedelic sounds of the electric guitar. He wanted to take the piano to the same uncharted territories to which Jimi Hendrix took the guitar. What actually happened was not a mind-bending new sound but rather a crystal-clear replication of the piano’s true tone. This new device, the Helpinstill Piano Sensor, finally made it possible for live music lovers to hear the piano amid the crowded sound of a full ensemble.

The Ring Modulator…for the Trumpet?

Longtime fans of the BBC show Doctor Who should recognize the ring modulator as the effect behind the voice of the Daleks, the robot-mounted aliens bent on “ex-ter-min-ation.” Longtime jazz fans know that trumpeter and bandleader Don Ellis pushed every limit he could. His signature composition “Strawberry Soup” is a complicated 9/4, while “Bulgarian Bulge” moves in an unthinkable 33/8. As for his trumpet, he tried to take his instrument on electrified psychedelic odysseys, much like Charles Helpinstill. His ring modulator for the trumpet, found all over his landmark album Tears of Joy, is certainly among the more unique electronic devices for musical instruments. However, in the traditionalist milieu of jazz, a trumpet that sounded like a Dalek didn’t catch on.