Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500716
C A S Q U A R T E R L Y I S U M M E R 2 0 2 3 75 he called me, "Danny. Danny, come here. I want to introduce you to Paddy." Because Paddy was friends with Dr. David Putrino, they met on set during an interview. David Putrino is a very regarded neuroscientist working at Mount Sinai [who has been a] huge collaborator with Music: Not Impossible since the company's inception [along with] Mick Ebeling, the CEO, and founder. So, [Paddy] came and said, "Danny, we're looking for somebody to work with a project to help the deaf to have a better live-music experience through vibrations on the skin." When Paddy told me about this, I was like, "Oh my God. This is amazing. Give me a week; I'm going to come up with something." That was very naive of me because, technically, Paddy and I were able to hatch something together quickly, but the experience was horrible... It didn't work. [chuckle] I was like, "Oh. I didn't expect that." Okay. Paddy Hanlon CAS: We did an early version using an audio harness and some bone transducers. I figured I wanted to resonate the cavity of the body and placed them at certain points around the harness, but really, we just turned people into a big speaker. DB: Technically, it worked. You could feel the vibrations but couldn't tie them to the musical experience. That was the thing that made me lose my sleep for over a year. There should be no learning curve. That was the hardest thing because you might not like the music when you hear it's not your style or something. But you get affected by it immediately. So, it must be something that you, [feel] boom! It should be visceral. DB: It's visceral. So anyways, long story short, 14 months after this first meeting, I had a dream of Jimi Hendrix. That's a good dream any day. DB: I knew what to do. So, I woke up, put something together, and invited Paddy and David Putrino to visit my apartment in Central Harlem. They came, and they were like, "Man, you got it." PH: This was when Daniel had shifted to actuators and took off into that area, an area that he is a genius in. Also, at this point, David Putrino had the input of the correct spacing of the actuators around the body to give the best "surround body" type of engagement. Immediately, we called Mick Ebeling. Mick took a flight to experience it the next day or something. Mick then scheduled a call at Harvestworks with Paddy, me, and Skullcandy. So, the CTO of Skullcandy and another guy came in. They were very skeptical at first. [But] at the end of the meeting, they were like, "Oh!" Photo courtesy of M:NI