This article was first published in the September 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
The Artiphon INSTRUMENT 1 is a whole band in a single device. Lay it flat and it's a digital piano or a drum machine. Strum it and it becomes a guitar or banjo. Add in your smartphone to act as a bow, and it becomes a violin or -- held vertically -- a cello. "We're not just doing this to create a new instrument," says its Nashville-based creator Mike Butera, 31. "This is a new category of musical device -- the multi-instrument."
A lifelong violin player with a PhD in sound studies, Butera came up with the idea for a universal musical instrument back in 2011 after becoming frustrated with digital music-creation tools. "The power was available in apps, but the interfaces were lacking," he says. He founded Artiphon with friend Jacob Gordon, and four years and six prototypes down the line created the INSTRUMENT 1. The MIDI device features 12 touch-sensitive pads -- which make up the keys or frets -- crossed with six "strings". "You can slide them or apply vibrato, and they're pressure sensitive," says Butera. Then there's the bridge, six-string like nubs that can be pressed, plucked or strummed. "We did a tremendous amount of modelling of how strings behave," he says. (Artiphon has applied to patent the system.) The INSTRUMENT 1 also has two stereo speakers and can connect to a smartphone or PC to change the sound produced.
In April 2015, Artiphon raised $1.3m (£829,000) on Kickstarter from its $75,000 goal. Butera says the first backers will receive their INSTRUMENT 1s in January 2016, before a wider release later next year. "What we're carrying over is the history of musical instruments," says Gordon. "You can pick this up and play a guitar chord -- but then you can explore violin, or drums. It's about breaking out of the forms you're used to."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
