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Invented new sound synthesis techniques

Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 3:53 am
by DoctorNash
A documentary presenting the results from the past 5 years of my explorations in sound synthesis, compressed into 8 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQqXRSV8msA

There are many 'instrument creation environments' out there - MAX/MSP, Puredata, Supercollider, Reaktor, even DAWs like Renoise and Logic. But if one uses a general purpose programming language like C++ or what I've elected to use - Purebasic - for synthesis, it is like building a structure with tiny bricks rather than pre-fabricated modules - it may take longer but the flexibility and control over the end result is unparalleled. One is not bound by the look and feel of GUIs and components or even by DSP restrictions.

And there is just SO much to explore. For example, simply picking up a Bezier curve and looking at it briefly leads to:

What happens if I modulate the control points with low-to-audio frequency oscillators?
Or modulate them stochastically (with various probability functions)?
Or use the Bezier curve to warp the phase of a sine oscillator instead of vectors? (that's what I'm trying next)

There's excitement in the anticipation of the results when trying out these things - sometimes the outcome is underwhelming but the more one experiments, the more likely one is to strike something interesting.

And for some strange reason there are not many 'show and tell examples' out there of the source code of an actual, usable synth coded from scratch, let alone practical code examples illustrating techniques outside of the subtractive 'here is an oscillator through a filter with envelope' paradigm :?:
I have sought to correct that :)

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:47 am
by Bachus
Interesting and innovative..

Sadly it seems like noboddy reads these parts of the forum anymore..

Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:06 pm
by Bald Eagle
Interesting way of creating new synthesis techniques. I would love to see some of them in an iPad app with a cool and innovative user interface, something along the lines of Animoog and Nave.

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 2:13 pm
by DoctorNash
And now, a couple of extra-terrestrials 'jamming it out' with some of these 'alien' methods of sound synthesis :soundsgood
https://youtu.be/NmD7NdnD3WA