The Palestine Drum Liberator is a decolonial rhythm synthesizer designed in direct response to the ongoing violence against Palestinian life—cultural, political, and academic.
Built during a time of rising McCarthyism in academic and artistic spaces, the instrument reclaims sound as a form of refusal. It resists silencing with rhythm, circuitry, and memory.
Process and design files, codes, and documentation are freely available at sonicliberationdevices.com.
Part of the Sonic Liberation Devices series, this drum machine challenges what instruments can be; not just tools for making music but systems for carrying ancestral knowledge, political urgency, and communal survival. It was conceived in a moment when institutions weaponized neutrality to suppress solidarity and resistance.
This machine is not neutral. It takes a side and amplifies the voices that systems try to erase.
The Palestine Drum Liberator was not made for passive listening or commercial performance. It was made for those seeking tools that speak back, to use sound where speech is penalized, to resist institutional silence, and to center freedom through collective noise.
12 distinct waveforms, 5 Octaves, 7 preset percussion samples and 1 vocal chant (Free Palestine).
8x8 NeoPixel grid providing a visual interface for step sequencing. Additional features: OLED screen, BPM control, and effects such as delay, reverb and filter decay/attack. Modulation tools like ADSR envelopes and LFOs allow for dynamic sound shaping.
Users can manipulate patterns with controls for start/stop, pattern clearing, channel selection, and editing for both drum and melody sequencing. MIDI compatible for seamless integration with external hardware and MIDI clock synchronization.
Traditional instruments—Daf, Tabla, Riq, and Oud—were integrated into the Drum Liberator through close collaboration with Palestinian composer and producer Omar Ahmad. These sounds are not ornamental; they root the instrument in a living sonic heritage.
The samples are tuned to the Al-Farabi 25-tone, 10-fret microtonal system, a tuning framework developed in the 10th century during the Islamic Golden Age. Unlike Western 12-tone equal temperament, this system restores tonal nuance and cultural specificity, reconnecting the instrument to a musical lineage that resists standardization and erasure.
It’s not just about how the notes sound but what they carry. Each tone carries memory, offering a way to hear and feel a culture that continues to resist erasure. It is a reminder that musical systems are political and that tuning itself can be a form of resistance.
