Musical chairs with Mogees

Philip Haynes


Bruno Zamborlin wants to turn the world into a musical instrument. The London-based music researcher has created Mogees -- a pocket-sized sensor for your iPhone that transforms any surface into a playable, programmable synth. Stick a Mogees sensor on to a chair, for example (as Zamborlin, above, has), and a finger tap becomes an elegant keyboard trill. "The goal," he says, "is to help any object create its own sound."

Developed by Zamborlin during a joint arts and computer science PhD at Goldsmiths University, and by IRCAM in Paris, Mogees' sensor uses a contact microphone to convert the vibrations of a given surface into an electrical signal. A software model then analyses the material's acoustic properties to produce a sound. "Mogees extracts features such as the frequency, timbre, time decay and amplitude to analyse any gesture you make," explains Zamborlin. Notes are mapped to a specific song or scale -- so a palm slap may produce a low A, a light fingernail tap a high E -- and users can adjust settings via an iOS app.

Having raised £96,338 on Kickstarter, Zamborlin plans to release Mogees in August. It has already piqued the interest of London-based electronic duo Plaid (above, rear and right), who have constructed an instrument from five materials, each with its own Mogees sensor. "The amazing thing for me," says Zamborlin, "is to see how people use it to make music in all these different ways."


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