DAF-100
The perfect, imperfect iOS instrument
Client
Personal Project
Platform
iOS
Methods used
Rapid prototyping, AI-supported product development
tl;dr
Digital Audio Funstation 100, or DAF-100, is an iOS-based electronic music multi-instrument that is designed to be extremely fun and intuitive.
This app was designed in opposition to the current landscape of iPhone / iPad instruments, with three key priorities:
It must be physically easy and comfortable to use
It must be fun and playful
It must be constrained
It must feel like a physical instrument
FUNstation, not Workstation
Smartphones and tablets are incredibly capable as musical instruments, and have opened up unprecedented capabilities for creating sound.
But they’re not very fun to play.
Digital Audio Funstation 100, or DAF-100, is an iOS-based electronic music multi-instrument that is designed to be extremely fun and intuitive. It combines interface patterns from vintage instruments with playful visual controls, and is optimized for smartphone ergonomics.
The result is something playful and irreverent, with deliberate limitations that make it exciting, surprising, and, of course, very fun.
PRINCIPLE 1
It must be physically easy and comfortable to use
Smartphone instruments are usually packed with cramped controls that require some very not-fun and difficult finger contortion.
DAF-100 was designed to be ergonomic to help the user move quickly and easily as they play around.
The layout is based on the natural range of motion of fingers (thumbs, in particular), so clicks and drags are comfortable.
The app also forgoes fine-grained controls in favour of coarse and often obscure controls. This is because it's super annoying and tedious to use one's big, fat finger to adjust controls by very small amounts, so it's better to remove that from the realm of interaction altogether.
All of these design decisions – control placement, spacing, sizing, and behaviour – were repeatedly refined through hands-on iteration and testing. As a result, DAF feels natural to use.
PRINCIPLE 2
It must be fun and playful
Making music is supposed to be fun.
Here's a video clip of a synth control in DAF. You can't see my touches, but I am tapping and dragging on the images to change the sound.
To make an instrument for smartphones / tablets and simply create a digital clone of an instrument that already exists is a huge missed opportunity. This is an artistic playground with infinite possibility!
DAF-100 features lots of handmade and often obscure graphics, both as interactive controls and visual feedback.
I've been working (playing) with digital audio almost since the beginning, I'm jaded as hell. 20 minutes with this thing and I'm reminded me of how much fun it is to just play with sound. Good job and thank you.
App Store review
PRINCIPLE 3
It must be constrained
Just because digital instruments can do anything doesn't mean they should.
Some of my favourite synthesizers are dear to me precisely because of their limitations and imperfections.
The Polivoks, an '80s Soviet analog synth, was a particular inspiration here. It's flawed and limited – the keyboard, for example, is insanely rickety – but has a special personality.
Instead of infinite flexibility or pristine fidelity, DAF's instrument modes are designed with limitations, and the tones they produce are heavily saturated and distorted. The user isn't given the freedom to make any sound they want, and those constraints make this a true instrument, not just a sound utility.
One of the instrument modes in the app is called Drune, and it's a drone and noise machine. It's uninviting and not particularly musically useful, but it can produce emotionally resonant textures and atmospheres.
This instrument is not a piece of tidy software for precise and productive music making. It’s limited and weird and flawed.
The restrictive nature of the app tickles my creative bones in just the right way. It's great fun with enough control to actually create, but not too much to get lost in.
App Store review
PRINCIPLE 4
It must feel like a physical instrument
Synthesizers, samplers and drum machines create sound with electricity, not physical vibration.
But the physicality of electronic instruments is still important, even though that's not what shapes the sonic characteristics. These physical tools have a feel, and feel is important to making music (and to being human).
As electronic instruments shift to software, the physical form is phased out altogether. Smartphones and tablets are the ultimate formless device. They’re featureless, frictionless rectangles.
To help make it feel like a real-life instrument, DAF-100 is full of physical feedback and friction, provided by haptic feedback. Taps and gestures feel tangible and satisfying.
Design -> build -> test -> iterate, repeat
DAF-100 was developed through continuous prototyping, experimentation, and iteration.
Because the project was so concerned with the physical and emotional experience of interaction, it wasn't enough for the interfaces to simply look good or make sense on paper. They needed to feel good.
The design was crafted through constant iteration, oscillating between moving pixels in Figma, chatting with Codex, and testing the outcomes.
The process involved repeatedly asking:
Can I reach this control comfortably?
Does this interaction feel natural?
Is this fun to manipulate?
Can I understand it without instructions?
Does this interface encourage me to experiment?
Smartphone instruments are usually designed around their functionality. DAF was designed around human factors.