Gadgetory

here's a musical instrument that doesn't require years of lessons to master in fact you don't need any musical experience to create your own beats with blocks this 4x4 inch lighted touchpad is a brand new type of music system designed to be friendly for anyone to learn even if you're intimidated by creating your own music but it also can grow into an advanced tool for professional performances here's how blocks works the pressure-sensitive silicon surface shows lights on a grid each block represents a different note use an app to choose your instrument or sounds and choose a scale be it major minor or something more advanced each scale has its own light pattern stay in the lights and you'll stay in harmony you can glide between notes bending the pigeons sliding into the next note just by dragging a finger sounds respond to how hard you press down make a beat save it to a loop switch instruments or sounds and keep layering beats on top of one another at launch there are 128 sounds available through the online network noise fm the site is also where you'll find a community of other artists sharing their Tunes even well-known musicians like Grimes Steve Aoki and RZA are contributing and making their own sound packs if you download someone else's performance the app lights up to show you how the person hit the notes so you can play along to learn or even remix their work and about that app it's called noise it's a free download in the Apple App Store so if you're curious about blocks you can try the app before buying the whole setup blocks is a creation of london-based company Roley previously Roley put a new spin on the keyboard with an instrument called the Seaboard blocks takes that concept and packs it down into a square light grid the light pad block and the app is all you need to get started but you can magnetically snap on more blocks for more control including two smaller ones with shortcut buttons they attach to any of the four sides the main light pad block cost about 180 dollars or 170 pounds in the UK the smaller control pad blocks will run about $80 or 70 pounds each there's another cost you may not realize it requires an iPad or iPhone to play the music there's no audio output on the blocks it's sending the sound to the app over Bluetooth which in this demo was playing through a speaker oh and if you want to save and share your creation with others you're only able to do so in the noise FM network but the creator's say additional sharing and saving functions are planned for future updates there's also no Android app but that's coming eventually for now it's just for iOS and Apple is the exclusive retail outlet for blocks for CNET I'm Bridget Carey you