During musical performances, some performers like to leave their voices largely untouched. Others appreciate the addition of well-timed reverbs, delays, and vocoder effects, which is typically triggered using some kind of stomp box. The OWOW Wiggle Kit offers an alternative to pedals and stomp boxes by allowing you to process vocals using simple hand gestures.
Designed for both live performances and studio recordings, the device allows you to add voice effects by either moving your hand left-to-right, high-to-low, or twisting your wrist. No more stomp boxes to keep in front of you on stage while you’re singing – just keep the compact controller in your hand throughout the performance (they recommend strapping it using the included band to your microphone) and move your hand accordingly to change up your vocals at any time.
The OWOW Wiggle Kit is a MIDI controller for vocalists consisting of a compact device designed to sit in hand. To get started, simply pair the device with your phone over Bluetooth, select a voice effect to use with each gesture using the app (it comes with over 20 built in), and tweak it according to your exact liking. From there, you can start singing into your phone’s microphone to see how the effects work. Of course, playing around in your phone isn’t what you plan to do with this thing.
Since it’s MIDI-compatible, it should work with most existing music software, too, from Ableton and Logic Pro to FL Studio and Cubase to everything in between without needing to use the app. As such, you can integrate it into live performances and studio recordings the same way you would any MIDI controller, ensuring there’s not much setup required to get up and running with your new voice effects rig. Suffice to say, if you’ve been looking for a more intuitive way of adding vocal effects on your shows, this seems a lot simpler than traditional solutions.
Using the Wiggle Kit app, you can adjust a variety of settings for the controller, ensuring you get full control of it during performances. You can, for instance, adjust the range and direction of the X, Y, and Z axis, so you can make the controller sensitive to subtle movements or make it wait for big gestures before triggering effects, as well as add or remove smoothing effects. You can have it send control change, pitch bends, or notes, depending on what you plan to do during the show, as well as kill the mode curve and adjust the channel, among other things.
If the device look familiar, that’s because it’s based on OWOW’s previous creations, which are similar gesture-based MIDI controllers for various musical instruments. According to the outfit, they decided to do a voice controller when they saw a customer repurposing one of their devices for exactly that purpose, at which point they decided to tweak the design to cater specifically for vocalists.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the OWOW Wiggle Kit. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at €79.