Superbooth Video: Chair.Audio Excitable Touch & Vibration Haptic Instrument

This new instrument / interface from Chair.Audio (from the The Center for Haptic Audio Interaction Research) is probably one of the most innovative announcements from Superbooth18. Sure, we're not talking a Behringer clone of a much loved clasic analog drum machine, or a combination of sequencer grid and hybrid analog/digital synthesizer that'll blow your mind like Medusa. Chair.Audio's first, and as yet unnamed instrument, is quite unique.

This is what Superbooth is really all about in my opinion. Here we've got the first instrument from a new company called Chair.Audio that is designed to change the way we interact with sound-making machines by doing away with the musical keyboard metaphor and introducing a surface with haptic feedback that can be played with your fingers, a violin bow or anything in between. A digital instument that provides enough feedback to feel responsive and organic in the way you'd feel if interacting with a guitar or another acoustic instrument interface.

Check it out in this very short video of the new Chair.Audio instrument from FactMag:

In short, we love to see innovative music ideas like this one from Chair.Audio and of course, there's other cool controllers and instruments out there that are forward-looking... oh, you want me to name drop a few OK: Joué, ROLI Blocks, Expressive E Touché, Linnstrument... and there's more!

From their website, Chair.Audio, explains that, "digital sound designers can get touch information and vibration via USB. For analog synthesis it can output CV for x, y, gate and additionally the vibration signal." So this could make it a compelling interface for controlling anything from digital software plugins to hardware eurorack synthesizers.

These are exciting times and we're certainly happy that shows like Superbooth exist where smaller developers and creators can affordably showcase their ideas and new music products.