Deriva.

Deriva is a longitudinal acoustic instrument. It records how a sound field changes across frequency and time — capturing not the moment, but the change between moments. The instrument is designed for research, long-term acoustic monitoring, and any context in which the evolution of an acoustic environment is itself the object of study.

The studio's intent for Deriva is to give researchers, engineers, and serious operators a tool that documents acoustic behavior over hours, days, or longer durations, without compression of the underlying data and without dependency on remote infrastructure. The signal path is deterministic. Measurement runs on the device. Capture runs on the device. The data does not leave the device unless the operator chooses to export it. A captured session is a durable record. It can be reviewed at length, exported, or sent by email when the work calls for it.

Measurement

Deriva computes equivalent continuous sound pressure level (Leq) over short and long integration windows, with both A-weighted (LAeq) and C-weighted (LCeq) curves, and full-band peak. Spectral content is rendered across the audible range as a continuous heatmap — sound pressure on one axis, frequency on the other, time progressing through the field. A second display, the drift heatmap, compares current behavior against a captured reference, surfacing spectral drift across low, mid, and high bands as it accumulates.

The instrument runs natively on macOS. There is no cloud dependency, no telemetry, no account.

Field deployment

Deriva entered active deployment at the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix in May 2026, where it ran continuously through race weekend in support of the event's audio and broadcast operations. The deployment marked the instrument's first sustained run in a high-pressure production environment, validating both its measurement fidelity and its ability to operate without supervision over the duration of a live event.

Availability

Deriva is currently in field deployment with the studio. A wider release is in preparation. Researchers, broadcast and live audio engineers, and acoustic consultants who would like to be notified when the instrument becomes generally available are welcome to write to the studio at hello@zerqon.org.