Ba-Dum-Tshirt

While you may or may not play drums, or even pay attention to music that closely, there’s a good chance that you recognize the distinctive “ba-dum-tss” – two hits on a drumhead, followed by a ringing cymbal, often played to accentuate jokes. If that still doesn’t ring a bell (or cymbal), the sequence of taps on this conductive t-shirt should refresh your memory.

While ba-dum-tss is traditionally played on the drums, musical-garment pseudonymous hacker "kantoniak" made an embroidered t-shirt that plays the riff when the conductive threads below each set of characters are touched. Above the t-shirt’s input text, a rather happy embroidered meme character is playing the drum and cymbal, illustrating the t-shirt's operation. In theory, you could also play tss-dum-ba, ba-ba-ba, or any other combination, as a somewhat versatile wearable percussion set.

As outlined in the project’s GitHub page, the device uses a Raspberry Pi Pico for control, an audio output board, and an MPR121-based module for capacitive sensing. It also features an optional enclosure/backplate made using a laser cutter and 3D printer, which can be sewn onto the shirt as expedient. Info including CircuitPython firmware and sound files is provided if you want to try this yourself.

Of course, the really interesting bit about this build is the use of conductive thread in the touch-sensitive sections, along with regular embroidery thread for the illustration, which could be useful in a variety of situations. It looks like a lot of fun, and something that could inspire other fun musical hacks!