Once in a while we leave the codebase and pick up a soldering iron. Lasers, photodiodes, salvaged furniture, brass knobs. Always music — just routed through unfamiliar wood and wire.
01 / 2015Read project →An eight-string harp where every string is a green laser beam. Break the beam and the photodiode fires a note from DRC. Built with Rui Antunes (Analog Repair) for gnration's Laboratórios de Verão, then toured to Noite Branca, BMW's 100 years at Autódromo do Estoril, Casa da Música and TEDx.
02 / 2017Read project →An antique music-box cabinet rebuilt around a modern synth engine. Brass knobs and a hand-carved frame hide a fully-working DRC inside. A love letter to the objects that started this whole obsession.
Most of what we build runs on a screen. Every now and then, an idea wants a body — a frame to hold, a string to pluck, a knob that costs us a weekend on a lathe.
None of these are products. They were built once, used at the things they were built for, and quietly returned to the studio. We document them here because they belong to the same workshop as the apps.
Every project speaks MIDI. The Harpa Laser plays through DRC. The Music Box is a DRC, hidden in walnut.
We build them to learn something, not to sell them. The lessons go back into the apps.
How do you really know if a synth voice is good? Put it inside a piece of furniture and let strangers play it.