Luca De Rosso’s OTTO is an electronic musical instrument for realtime manual beat slicing of audio samples.

OTTO provides a tangible user interface designed with the aim of giving the user the feel of having the sample in his hands. The musician can manipulate an audio sample in real time through the use of a restricted number of simple physical buttons and switches.

In computer music audio samples are generally represented as the waveform itself or as little colored blocks. Since the sample inside OTTO as to be controlled really fast, the performer needs to quickly understand where and how to play a specific part. The sample visualization has been designed to provide just the information needed and nothing more.

There are several more demo videos at Luca De Rosso’s YouTube channel.

via Peter Kirn’s Create Digital Music – Peter puts up something incredible every day, so make sure CDM is on your shortlist of sites to visit!