The Cornwalls

Whales song at Land's end...

Yann Viot from the Shelltone Whale Project and Richard Hardy from "SAS" at Saint Agnes, office of Surfers Against Sewage pursuing similar goals...

Italian Connection

Blowin' the tower...

With our friend Gianni Placido a great Didgeridoo Master in Bologna.
With Gianni Placido at the Didgeridoo convention in Airvault, France.

Production !!!!

Thanks to the Caliplast Team from La Planche , Brittany france

we started manufacuring the injection mold of the Shelltone.

The mold in progress...

First attempt...

Finally after two years of R&D....the first Shelltone was born....

It's time to play now !!!

Watch the first Shelltone production tests.

Prototype launched....

This is the first prototype we produced.

Jean François Petiot...tuning at the lab.
After a few prototypes...we had "our" sound ! The whale sounds ...

It was time then to figure how to build the injection mold in order to produce series.

Watch the prototype tuning by Jean François Petiot.

Designing an Ocean Sound Device ?

Designing a conch shell that could reproduce the Ocean sounds, the whales songs....

Reproducing whales and dolphins sounds in order to communicate with them...

We first started, with Jean-François Petiot and François Tavard at the acoustic research laboratory of Ecole Centrale de Nantes, to study the resonance peaks and impedance of the natural Triton Pacifica shell. One thesis was made upon the subject.

From this, we started to design what should be the chamber of resonance of our own shell.

We came up with a 3D pattern of the future Shelltone....

It was time for us to build prototypes.

The Shelltone Whale Project

Beneath the surface of the Oceans, whales are singing some amazingly complex and delicate songs, pure

expression of their wisdom. It appears that anyone who approached a whale, and had a chance to listen to their

songs, had the feeling that those peacefull creatures might have a tremendous knowledge still to be discovered and

shared.

On the Tibetans mountains, buddhist monks have been playing shell trumpets for centuries. The "right conch shell"

representing the beautiful, deep, melodious and pervasive sound of the Buddhadharma.

From those establishments, we decided to create a shell that could be appropriate to unite those universes.

After two years of collaboration between acoustic engineers marine biologists and designers, the Shelltone was

born. The Shelltone is an Ocean Sound Device inspired by the conch shell. It allows anyone to play with ocean

sounds, the whale songs.

The mission of the "Shelltone Whale Project" is to become a link between us and the whales, by learning more from

their songs ,attempt to communicate with them and trying to understand their message to mankind.

Free spirit will prevail.

Pierre Lavagne