Andrew McPherson
@apmcpherson.bsky.social
Professor in Design Engineering and Music, Imperial College London. Researcher, composer, violist, engineer, instrument designer. Leader of the Augmented Instruments Laboratory instrumentslab.org. Co-founder and director of Bela.io.
Coming up August 3rd: a double-header online seminar from the Augmented Instruments Lab featuring Oliver Bown and Anthony Marasco. Starts 3pm UK time here: youtube.com/live/WuHdzO6...
AIL Open Seminars #013 and #014 – Ollie Bown and Anthony Marasco
YouTube video by Augmented Instruments Lab
youtube.com
Congrats to the 9 other project winners which also included my colleague Adam Schmidt (both supervised by @apmcpherson.bsky.social ) and especially winner of the grand prize David Gabriel! So many great hardware projects on display and lots of inspiring talks!
Last week I was at the University of Lancaster for the wonderful @prosquared.org summer school. A great and informative week. I was also lucky enough to be selected as a prize winner for my HaptiCoupler project!
I've got a new paper out in Organised Sound, definitely one of the weirdest things I've ever written but I'm rather proud of it. "Notes aren't real: an anti-framework for entangled musical instrument design". doi.org/10.1017/S135...
Notes aren’t real: An anti-framework for entangled instrument design | Organised Sound | Cambridge Core
Notes aren’t real: An anti-framework for entangled instrument design
doi.org
Yesterday our lab ( @apmcpherson.bsky.social & co.) hosted the NIME open day - a post #NIME2026 event for anyone interested to come and demo their instruments and music tech creations and for attendees to come and experience them. Around 40 demos and ~200 attendees came along - some photos below!
NIME 2026 starts tomorrow! In addition to co-chairing this year's conference, the Augmented Instruments Lab has five papers this year (thread)
Alongside our lab co-hosting #NIME2026, I'll also be presenting a paper there! Our paper "Techniques for Closely-Coupled Sensing and Actuation in Digital Musical Instruments" (by me, Adam Schmidt, and @apmcpherson.bsky.social) explores methods of sensing and actuating for hybrid instruments (1/2)
this is a brilliant summary of a terrible terrible policy. It is absolutely not an understatement to say this will destroy US science.
elizabethginexi.bsky.social@elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 2mo agoSummary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...
Coming to #NIME2026 or in London at the end of June anyway? Come along to our lab open day on 27/06! We'll be demoing our work (including @apmcpherson.bsky.social's magnetic resonator piano) and you can submit a proposal for a demo of your own work! Sign up here: forms.cloud.microsoft/e/rTgMiXpXd6
Next week I'll be at #CHI2026 in Barcelona presenting our paper "Design Explorations of Instruments and Interactions with Bidirectional Haptic Couplings" (by me & @apmcpherson.bsky.social). Read all about it here: davisonaudio.github.io/chi2026/
Design Explorations of Instruments and Interactions with Bidirectional Haptic Couplings
Exploring the design of digital musical instruments with bidirectional tactile interaction through a user study. This study investigates the potential design and interaction implications when tradional unidirectional mapping paradigms are swapped out for bidirectional haptic interaction.
davisonaudio.github.io
Tomorrow 11am UK time: join us for an AIL Open Seminar by Tom Richards on Daphne Oram and Oramics. Tom will introduce Oram's pioneering instrument design work and present his Mini-Oramics machine, a portable version of the original Oramics. Streaming here: youtube.com/live/k-8HMXT...
AIL Open Seminars #012 – Tom Richards
YouTube video by Augmented Instruments Lab
youtube.com
and another talk with Prof Georgina Born: "Beyond ethics, for a critical interdisciplinary AI music pedagogy", on the work we're doing at @musaiproject.bsky.social with @rebeccafiebrink.bsky.social and @weefuzzy.bsky.social
(there's an Organised Sound paper on this collaboration coming out soon!)
one is with Prof Andrew McPherson @apmcpherson.bsky.social : "Of ghosts and slop: is there 'an' AI music aesthetic?", in which we'll discuss some thoughts on the aesthetics of musical practices with AI systems, and the work we did in collaboration with Dr Adam Pultz Melbye @adampultz.bsky.social
I'll be at the AI Music Studies conference (AIMS 2026 www.aims2026.com/programme) in two weeks, held at the University of Nottingham. I'll be giving two talks on Wed. April 1st:
aims2026.com
Monday 16 March, 2pm UK: Kathy Hinde presents "Magnetic sensing as inspiration for an installation and performance" as part of the Augmented Instruments Lab Open Seminars series. Hybrid in-person at Imperial College London (DM for location) and online: www.youtube.com/live/3Yv4_33...
AIL Open Seminars #011 – Kathy Hinde
YouTube video by Augmented Instruments Lab
youtube.com
First time recording a piano in a while – and this one was full of electromagnets! Great fun last week recording audio for @apmcpherson.bsky.social's Magnetic Resonator Piano with @xeniapestova.bsky.social playing, along with some fun other Augmented Instruments Lab creations. Videos coming soon!
The latest from Bela -- TRAILS is here! See what it can do here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVpv.... Pre-orders are live now on shop.bela.io, estimated shipping in June.
Introducing Trails: Polyphonic Touch Recorder
YouTube video by Bela Platform
youtube.com
We've been busy at Bela lately. Having recently released Bela Gem, our new module Trails is just about to drop! Sneak peek: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNw... Join the (low-traffic) mailing list at bela.io/trails to be the first to know when it launches.
Trails: Compose in Shapes
YouTube video by Bela Platform
youtube.com
Bela Gem is here: the biggest upgrade to the Bela platform in a decade, with a quad-core processor (PocketBeagle 2), up to 10ch audio I/O, and a completely new IDE. We've delivered the boards to our Crowd Supply backers and it's now available on our shop: bela.io/products/bel...
Bela Gem Stereo & Multi
Bela Gem systems are tiny, embeddable, yet very powerful Linux systems for creating applications with interactive sensors and sound. They have been designed for ultra-low latency audio and sensor proc...
bela.io
One week left to apply to this PhD studentship! Fully funded, covers fees and stipend; UK home student applicants only (due to funder rules).
Andrew McPherson@apmcpherson.bsky.social · 8mo agoI'm recruiting a PhD student for autumn 2026 on a project on accessibility in musical instrument design, in partnership with disability arts charities OHMI and Drake Music. Application deadline 15 February 2026. More info and contact details: liss-dtp.ac.uk/project/inst...
In residence at the Guildhall School of Music today with @xeniapestova.bsky.social and the magnetic resonator piano. New pieces by Guildhall composers in preparation!
Just published: the second edition of the Audio Effects textbook by Josh Reiss and me. Featuring new material, including on phase vocoders, spatial audio, and practical topics in audio programming, plus updated code examples. www.routledge.com/Audio-Effect...
Audio Effects: Theory, Implementation and Application
Audio effects are used pervasively in music performance and production, and the creation of new digital audio tools is a significant industry. They are also commonly used in game production, broadcast...
routledge.com
Grieving for my home state of Minnesota again tonight, but also proud of the courage of Minnesotans. If only the US “leadership” class had 1% of the decency and moral clarity of ordinary citizens.
I'm recruiting a PhD student for autumn 2026 on a project on accessibility in musical instrument design, in partnership with disability arts charities OHMI and Drake Music. Application deadline 15 February 2026. More info and contact details: liss-dtp.ac.uk/project/inst...
Instrument design by and for disabled musicians: the roles of technical discourse and vernacular creativity - LISS DTP
PhD project summary: An estimated 16 million people in the UK live with a disability (DWP statistics 2023), of which 48% have mobility impairments and 25% have impaired dexterity. Traditional […]
liss-dtp.ac.uk
Where do the following quotes come from? (Hint: not from a NIME paper.) "The format of the future will be interactive. It should be social." "There’s not a right or a wrong answer. [Music is] not a problem to solve."
I'm recruiting a PhD student for autumn 2026 on a project on accessibility in musical instrument design, in partnership with disability arts charities OHMI and Drake Music. Application deadline 15 February 2026. More info and contact details: liss-dtp.ac.uk/project/inst...
Instrument design by and for disabled musicians: the roles of technical discourse and vernacular creativity - LISS DTP
PhD project summary: An estimated 16 million people in the UK live with a disability (DWP statistics 2023), of which 48% have mobility impairments and 25% have impaired dexterity. Traditional […]
liss-dtp.ac.uk
I'd appreciate if any audio tech folks could help circulate this exciting call for a fully-funded PhD position working in multichannel audio design for galleries. It's part of an ARC funded project 'From Noise to Signal: Improving Sonic Experiences in the Gallery' www.unsw.edu.au/research/hdr...