You can find USB-C gadgets that do all kinds of various things, but there’s only one (so far) that actually turns your phone into a musical instrument.
Throughout the years, many different gadgets and apps for making music on your phone have cropped up. Some are focused on transforming your smartphone into a digital sampler, while others give you the option of plugging your instruments directly into an app on your phone to make recording a little more portable. One device builds on this legacy by turning your phone into an instrument you can control with your mouth.
The Zefiro is a “smart reed”, named for the lamella used to make sound on reed instruments like clarinets, oboes, and saxophones. It works with an application that you can install on your smartphone or tablet. Using the app, you can control the instrument, customize your settings, record your playing, and even pick a backing track to jam out to. You can also use it to change which virtual instrument you’re controlling with the smart reed, with a wide range of options available, including traditional bagpipes and even string instruments.
Artinoise, the company behind the smart gadget, designed the Zefiro as a part of their commitment to making musicality more accessible. Indeed, being able to play around with a huge assortment of virtual instruments using just a phone dongle is far cheaper than having access to a whole orchestra — particularly when the gadget costs roughly $50. This isn’t the company’s first venture into making digital instruments, either. One of their previous innovations was the Re.
