Blind drummers and Aerodrums

[RustyPerez]

Hey guys,
I first experienced Aerodrums at NAMM a few years ago and I thought it was really cool! I've finally given up the dream of having room for a drum set or Ekit in my current studio so I'm strongly considering Aerodrums.
BUT, I'm blind and so I'm wondering how accessible the software will be with my screen reader.
Obviously the idea of airdrumming on an imaginary drum set, visualizing where the pieces are, this isn't the problem. I just want to be able to set things up for myself.

My primary use case is for sending midi drums in to Reaper so I can record.

Is there a demo version of the Aerodrums software, or any way to discover whether it will be accessible with my screen reader?
Thanks so much!
Rusty

[Richard]

Hi Rusty, I'm sorry we haven't done any work yet on making Aerodrums easier to use for blind people. We also don't have any experience with screen reader software so it's hard to say how it will behave with Aerodrums. We mostly use a custom user interface that doesn't rely on standard Windows/Mac UI controls. If the screen reader does OCR (optical character recognition) to try to understand what text is on the screen then it might work well enough. I will send you a private message about this so you can test it.

During setup there are some steps that would be easier to perform if you can see the screen. These steps include:
1) positioning your seat correctly relative to the Aerodrums camera (the Aerodrums camera stand makes this step a lot more straightforward)
2) diagnosing issues with lighting - if there is too much background light it can affect Aerodrums' abililty to track the drumsticks

In addition, a lot of the customisation functionality is only accessible from the main drumming screen by using your drumsticks to navigate a special user interface that you cannot control using the mouse or keyboard.

It would make things a lot easier if there is someone who isn't visually impaired that can help you with the initial setup and customisation. Once things are set up to your satisfaction (including the configuration to send MIDI notes to Reaper) then it should be as straightforward as running the Aerodrums application and clicking the "Drum" button.