Drift iOS · Swift · Metal · AVFoundation · SoundAnalysis

A gestural instrument that turns any recorded sound into a playable landscape. Record up to 10 seconds from the microphone — voice, a room, a guitar string, anything — and Drift transforms the amplitude envelope into a reactive 3D terrain. Loud moments rise into ridges. Silence stays flat. Every recording has a unique shape. An on-device sound classification model listens to what you recorded and names it automatically.

Touch the surface and a granular synthesis engine breaks the sample into tiny overlapping fragments, each windowed and blended so the result is textural rather than rhythmic. Drag horizontally to scrub through the recording. Drag vertically to shift pitch from a deep drone to a bright shimmer. Press harder to thicken the grain cloud. Two fingers play independently — two positions, two pitches, two voices from the same sample.

The grid is a 9,600-cell spring-mass system rendered in Metal at 120fps. Your finger depresses the mesh; surrounding lines ripple outward and spring back with physics tuned to hold duration. The terrain carries a teal-to-coral color gradient that gives you spatial landmarks while playing. When you’re not touching, the surface breathes.

Built as a solo project using AI-assisted development. Design, audio engine, Metal shaders, and interaction design are all original.