Three-dimensional composition
Placing musical material in space, and asking what that changes about how music gets written.
Spher8
Creative Technology & Instrument Design
Designing new ways to create.
Creative technology and instrument design for sound, space and immersive media.
Flagship
Compose Beyond Sound
A DAW built for the next generation of creatives, with a toolset that keeps expanding.
Sound · Gesture · Video · Lighting · 3D · Immersive Projection
Beyond Atrium
Explorations
Spher8 began with experiments in three-dimensional musical composition and continues to explore new instruments, interfaces and approaches to creative technology.
New instruments & interfaces
Gesture, movement and physical control treated as first-class ways of shaping sound.
Immersive media & space
Sound, light and projected space explored as one continuous medium.
About Spher8
Spher8
Spher8 is an independent creative technology initiative dedicated to the design and development of new musical instruments and environments for composition, performance and immersive media.
Its origins lie in more than two decades of composing, teaching and building custom tools for the concert hall — work that kept running into the same limits of existing software. Spher8 was founded to address them directly.
The approach is simple: an instrument should follow the imagination of the person using it. Sound, space, gesture and image are treated as one continuous material rather than separate tracks in separate applications.
That work brings together artistic research, software development and experimental instrument design, with an emphasis on expanding the possibilities of musical expression for composers, artists and performers.
Founder
Dr Ivan Zavada
Composer · Educator · Instrument Designer
Spher8 was founded by Ivan Zavada, Senior Lecturer in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney.
His work explores the relationships between musical composition, technology, visual expression and immersive media.
Spher8 extends these artistic and research interests into the design and development of new creative instruments, including its flagship digital audio workstation, Atrium.