At Playtronica, a Berlin-based music technology company, I worked on Orbita — a tactile MIDI colour sequencer that turns coloured magnets into musical notes on a rotating turntable. Four concentric loops run simultaneously, each reading magnet positions as the disc spins, sending MIDI over USB-C to any DAW or to Playtronica's built-in web synthesiser.
The instrument was designed to remove screens from the composition process entirely. Players place and rearrange magnets by hand, adjust tempo with a physical knob, and hear results immediately. It connects to Ableton, Logic, FL Studio, or runs standalone through the browser synth — no software installation required.
My work focused on the embedded firmware and the sensor system that detects magnet colour and position in real time as the disc rotates. The challenge was achieving reliable colour discrimination at speed while keeping latency low enough for live performance, all within the constraints of a compact, bus-powered device.
