Impractical Devices

STR-500 String Sampler

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

STR-500

Gestural granular synthesizer

Purchasing info for STR-500 instruments, bare PCBs, assembled PCBs, etc coming soon! Join the mailing list to be notified when new things are available!

github link to code, schematics, and resources right here

The STR-500 is a sampler that does one thing: you record a sound and then play it back by pulling a string. You travel through the sound in time, so you can pull the string slowly or quickly, or stop in the middle to freeze the sound.

Memory Cloud

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Memory Cloud

You have a new memory

The Memory Cloud is a granular synthesizer that uses your own cloud media library. It is an intensely personal and radically small scale instrument that repositions our personal media as something to be played with. In doing so it challenges the dominant paradigms of growth and technological “innovation” in musical instrument design.

I’ve written a paper about this instrument for NIME, you can have a read for a lot more details.

All of Your Sounds

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

All of Your Sounds

All of Your Sounds is a little device that takes the sounds of your entire cloud media library and uses them to generate a constantly shifting ambient sound world. You turn up the volume when you want to listen, and turn it down when it gets too much.

This project is currently in development (again!). More updates will come eventually, if things work out.

The Book of Knowledge of Impractical Musical Devices

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Book of Knowledge of Impractical Musical Devices

This was the original Impractical Devices project, from 2019. It was a set of three experimental instruments accompanied by essays and resources. Please visit the project website to read the essays, watch videos, and learn more about the project as a whole.

There is also an academic publication about the project, published at SMC 2025.