The Saraz Harmonic Spider - Turn Your HandPan Into a Speaker

With the New Year barely upon us, it’s clear that 2017 is going to be an interesting year for the Handpan, with Saraz Handpans kicking things off with the unveiling of a new prototype device that they’re calling the “Harmonic Spider” (or the “Saraz Sonic Driver”), that is capable of turning a Handpan, into a speaker.

The results of a collaboration between Saraz, and Paul Vo, of Vo inventions, the Harmonic Spider utilises a programmable magnetic field, to drive sounds into the vibrations of the Handpan's membranes.  And in the words of team Saraz, “We quickly realized that we could drive the device with an enormous array of inputs including other musical instruments, Pro Tools plugins, Ableton Live or even a sound file such as an MP3”.  Explorations that you can hear for yourself in the video below...



Perhaps exhibiting a lack of foresight at time of writing, this appears to be more of an intriguing development, rather than something with obvious practical uses.  Just because you can turn a Handpan into a speaker, is there any real need to do so?  However, Saraz’s choice of final song in the video above, with John Lennon’s, “Imagine”, is not lost on us here at HPM.  And with the Saraz guys promising a wealth of future videos featuring this new device to come as 2017 unfolds - we look forward to hearing more from the Harmonic Spider, and the possibilities it may well bring with it.

Find more information on the Saraz Harmonic Spider over at the Saraz website: HERE

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